Deeper Secrets of Human History
in the Light of the Gospel of St. Matthew
GA 117
9 November 1909, Berlin
Lecture II
Reference was made in the last lecture to our proposed study of the Gospels and we explained why we had decided to begin with certain aspects of St. Matthew's Gospel. In the first place it is in this Gospel that the most human side of Christ-Jesus is presented. Secondly, there is given in it a complete survey of events which show how the coming of Christ-Jesus is related to human history. This is a direct indication that this greatest of all phenomena on earth represents the culmination of actual historical events, and it is therefore natural to assume that this particular Gospel brings us face to face with the deeper secrets of the evolution of humanity.
Once again I must emphasise that the things of which we shall now be speaking call for accurate treatment, and that great harm can easily be done to the cause of Spiritual Science by giving to the general public any incomplete or one-sided picture of matters connected with these secrets. All communications should be made with great caution; nor is it too much to expect everyone to have the patience to refrain from attempting to present to himself a complete picture of Christ-Jesus until he has become acquainted with the four aspects revealed by the four Gospels.
In the Gospel of St. Luke we are shown how the two great pre-Christian streams of spiritual life—Zoroastrianism and the stream which reached its pre-Christian culmination in Buddhism—united, in order to pour themselves into the great Christian stream of spiritual life on the earth. The Gospel of St. Matthew is concerned primarily, with a quite different theme, namely, to show how and in what respects the physical entity in which the Zarathustra-Individuality incarnated springs from the ancient Hebrew people. It attempts to set out the part played by the ancient Hebrew people in the whole evolutionary process of mankind. It might easily be imagined that if the Zarathustra-Individuality incarnated in Jesus of Bethlehem, it was simply a matter of the body being born from the Hebrew people, and that this implies nothing more than that Zarathustra was reborn in a body of Hebrew stock. Such a conception would give rise to an entirely misleading picture of the truth.
We must realise more and more clearly the fact that an Individuality as great as Zarathustra uses the body as an instrument. Even if a Being were to come down to the earth out of the highest, even the very highest, divine worlds, and were to incarnate in an unsuitable physical organism, such a Being could make use of that body only to the extent to which it was actually capable of being an instrument. It is for this reason that the mistaken line of thought just referred to would readily lead to misconceptions. That man's bodily organism is the temple of the soul has long ceased to be properly understood. We must always remember what has so often been emphasised among us, namely, that the human Ego dwells within three sheaths, each one of which is more ancient than the Ego itself. The Ego is a being of Earth, the youngest of the members of man's nature. The astral body had its beginning on the Old Moon, the etheric or life-body on the Old Sun, the physical body on Old Saturn.3These are the recognised names in spiritual science for the p.26 earlier planetary conditions of the Earth. See An Outline of Occult Science. This means that the physical body is the most highly perfected, having four stages of planetary evolution behind it. The physical body has been developed through aeon after aeon until it has become what it is to-day—this perfect instrument in which the human Ego can so unfold that man can be enabled gradually to rise again to the heights of the spirit. If the physical body were as undeveloped as the astral body and the Ego, no evolution on the earth would be possible for man
If you realise the full significance of this, the thought of Zarathustra being born from the Hebrew people can no longer be clouded by any mistaken feeling. The constitution of the ancient Hebrew people had to be just what it was, if it was to provide the body for a being as great as Zarathustra. If we bear in mind that ever since the time when he had been the Teacher of the ancient Persian people, this great being had been developing to ever higher stages, we shall understand that for him a bodily instrument had to be provided from a racial stock whose greatness was commensurate with that of his own being.
An instrument had to be created, fit for Zarathustra. Through all the evolutionary periods of Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth, have the gods worked at the development of the human physical body. From this we may rightly infer that the more intimate preparation of one particular human body must necessarily have entailed great divine-spiritual labour, in order to produce a human body in the specially constituted form which was to be used at that time by Zarathustra.
To make this possible, the whole history of the ancient Hebrew people had to take the course it did. The Akasha Chronicle reveals that what is set down in the Old Testament conforms entirely with the historical facts. Everything that happened to the ancient Hebrew people had to be directed in such a way that it culminated in the single personality of Jesus of Bethlehem. But to achieve this, very special measures were essential.—It was necessary that from the whole of Post-Atlantean civilisation, faculties of the highest quality should be extracted, which would enable mankind to develop powers in place of the old clairvoyant gifts. It was the Hebrew people which was chosen for this task, to the end that it might provide a bodily constitution which, right into the most delicate vessels of the brain, was so organised that what we call knowledge of the world might evolve, free from the influences of the old clairvoyance.—This was to be the mission of the ancient Hebrew people. And in Abraham, the progenitor of this people, such an Individuality was chosen, that out of his bodily constitution, a suitable instrument might be fashioned for the development of reasoned thinking.4“Discursive thinking” would be an alternative translation p.27 of das urteilende Denken, the expression used by Rudolf Steiner here. “Discursive as opposed to intuitive cognition, is attained by a series of inferences rather than by direct insight.” (Runes: Dictionary of Philosophy, 4th ed. New York, 1942). All previous thinking of any significance was still subject to the influences of the old clairvoyance. But now a personality was chosen because he possessed the brain most capable of withstanding the inrush and coercion of clairvoyant Imaginations and Intuitions, and was destined to acquire knowledge of the things of the world purely by the process of reason. This required a specially constituted brain, and the personality chosen because he possessed such a brain, was Abram, or Abraham.
That the path of Abraham's journeyings led westwards from beyond the river Euphrates right up to Canaan, also tallies with what the Akasha Chronicle reveals. Abraham went forth, as the Bible tells us, from Ur in Chaldea. Whereas the aftermath of the ancient, shadowy clairvoyance was still in active operation in Egyptian, as well as in Chaldean-Babylonian civilisation, there was chosen from among the Chaldeans an individual who no longer worked by means of these faculties, but by observing the phenomena of the external world. This was to be the introduction of that form of culture whose fruits are to this very day implicit in the whole of the cultural life and civilisation of the West. Constructive reasoning and mathematical logic were both introduced through Abraham. Even until far into the Middle Ages he was regarded in a certain sense as the founder of arithmetic. The fundamental trend and character of his thinking led to observation of the world according to the relationships of measure and number. (See Appendix I, p. 72)
A personality so constituted was able, by his very nature, to enter into living relationship with that Divinity who was to reveal himself through the medium of external phenomena. All other Divinities, with the exception of Jahve or Jehovah, proclaimed themselves in the inmost depths of the human soul, and to acquire any knowledge of them man had to awaken in his soul the faculties of Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. The men of ancient India gazed at the rising sun, at the different kingdoms of the earth, at the processes manifesting in air and ocean, but regarded all this as a great Illusion, as “Maya”, in which they would have found nothing of a divine nature, had they not first acquired knowledge of the divine through inner Imagination, and then, afterwards, had proceeded to relate this knowledge to the phenomena of the external world. It must be realised that even Zarathustra could not have taught as he did of the mighty Sun-Being had not Ahura Mazdao in his glory been inwardly revealed to him. This is especially apparent in the case of the Egyptian divinities, who were first experienced in the inmost depths of the soul and only afterwards related to the things of the external world. All that applies to the Divinities of pre-Hebraic times must be understood in this way.
Jahve, however, is the Divine Being who gazes down upon men from outside, who comes to men from outside, manifesting Himself in wind and weather. When man penetrates to the relationships of number, measure and weight inhering in the things of the visible world, he draws near to the God Jahve.—In earlier times the process was reversed. Brahma was recognised, first, in the inmost depths of the soul and only from that experience did man find his way into the outer world. Jahve is recognised first in the outer world and only afterwards can his reality also be confirmed in man's inmost being. This is the spiritual aspect of what is called in the Bible: Jahve's covenant with Abraham. Abraham was a man who possessed the faculty to grasp and comprehend the nature of Jahve. Abraham's bodily constitution was such that he could recognise Jahve or Jehovah as the God who lives and moves in the outer phenomena of the universe.
It was now a matter of deriving from the particular faculties possessed by the individual man Abraham, the mission of a whole people. Abraham's spiritual constitution had to be transmitted to others. But this spiritual constitution is bound up with the physical instrument; whatever is to be brought to outward expression depends upon the physical body being organised in a definite and specific way. In the ancient religions, built up as they were on the foundation of shadowy clairvoyance, the particular formation of the various parts of the brain was not of such essential importance. Understanding of Jehovah, however, was fundamentally bound up with the constitution of the physical brain. Only by way of physical heredity, within a people linked by blood-relationship, could such faculties and qualities be transmitted.
Very special measures were necessary for the achievement of this end. Abraham must have descendants who would carry to further stages of development that unique physical organism which until then had been the work of the gods and which had come to its most perfect expression in Abraham. The elaboration of the physical, bodily constitution was now to be taken in hand by man independently and that which for long ages had been the work of the gods be led by man to further stages. That this process must extend over many generations is self-evident. A brain capable of understanding Jahve had to be preserved through physical heredity. Jahve's covenant with Abraham had also to pass on to his descendants. This, however, called for the uttermost devotion to Jahve on the part of Abraham; for it is possible to develop a particular organism to further stages only if it is used in conformity with the purpose for which it was originally created. If, with a certain aim in view, it is desirable that the hands, for example, shall be made particularly skilful, this can only be achieved by developing them in accordance with their own inherent character. If the physical qualities of the brain had to be developed to the point where comprehension of Jahve was possible, then devotion to and understanding of Jahve must have reached in Abraham the highest conceivable degree of intensity.
That was exactly what happened, as the Bible relates. Self-sacrifice is supreme when a man offers up all that the future holds in store for his own self. Abraham is called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac to Jahve. Therewith he would have sacrificed the whole Hebrew people, all that he himself was, and all that had to be brought, through him, into the world. Abraham was the very first human being who truly understood Jahve, in that he knew that if he desired to give proof of the fulness of his devotion, he must surrender himself utterly to Jahve. Through offering his only son, however, Abraham renounced the propagation of his line in the world. But so complete was his devotion that with full resolve, he offered up Isaac.
Then Isaac was restored to him. What does this signify? It signifies something of supreme importance. Abraham receives Isaac back at the hand of Jahve. This brings to Abraham the realisation that the mission that is his by virtue of his own Individuality he will not pass on to posterity through his own deed, but he is to receive it in the person of his son as a gift of Jahve.5This point, that the Hebrew heritage was not a matter merely p.32 of natural descent, but of divine choice and gift, is developed by St. Paul from a somewhat different view-point in >Romans IX, 8. “It is not the children of the flesh (Ishmael) that are children of God, but the children of the promise (Isaac) are reckoned for a seed.” Cp. also Romans IV, 13-21. Anyone who ponders this deeply will realise that here we have a fact of cosmic significance, whereby immeasurable light is shed upon the secrets of the historical evolution of humanity.
Now let us consider how events proceed.—Through Abraham's devotion to Jahve was made possible the right development of that which had hitherto been the work of the gods, namely the physical nature of humanity which had come into being out of the universe. As we know, the physical bodily constitution of man on the earth is connected, according to number, measure and weight, with all the laws governing the world of the stars. Out of the world of the stars man is born; in his very being he embodies the laws of that world. These laws had, as it were, to be inscribed into the blood flowing down from Abraham through the generations of the ancient Hebrew people. In this people everything must be so regulated as to ensure the continuance of the stream of ordered law which, flowing from the universe, has organised the human physical body according to the principles of number, measure and weight prevailing in the constellations. Again this is indicated in an utterance in the Bible, which is completely mistranslated. “I will make thy seed as the stars of heaven.”6Genesis XXII, 17. The meaning of the words is in no wise that God will make the Israelites as numerous as the stars of heaven, but that the way in which this people multiply and spread on the earth shall be governed by the laws and number-relationships prevailing in the ordering of the stars in heaven. The propagation of the Hebrew people was to be regulated in accordance with the number-harmonies of the stars.
We can see how this comes to pass. Isaac has two sons, Jacob and Esau. We see how all that was carried by the blood through the generations develops,—the blood of the line of Esau having been cut out and the main stream separated from it. Again, Jacob has twelve sons, corresponding to the twelve signs of the Zodiac through which the sun passes in the heavens, thus fulfilling the inner principle of the starry laws. Thus the number and measure prevailing in the heavens are factually portrayed to us in the life and descent, through their generations, of the Hebrew people.
Again, Abraham was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac, and thereby he received back his whole mission at the hand of Jahve. A ram or lamb is sacrificed in place of Isaac. This signifies something of the greatest profundity. The human corporality which was to propagate itself through the generations and which possessed the faculties necessary for comprehending the world according to number and measure, by mathematical logic—this human corporality was to be preserved intact and received back as the gift of Jahve. But in order that the intrinsic nature of this bodily constitution should remain pure and unalloyed, it was necessary that all old, shadowy clairvoyance, all Imaginations and Intuitions, all inflowing revelations such as had poured into the other ancient religions, including those of Chaldea and Egypt, should be renounced. Every gift from the spiritual world must be renounced. The last gift from the spiritual world, the one gift remaining after all the others have dimmed, is denoted in mystical symbolism by the Ram. The two horns of the ram symbolise the sacrifice of the two-petalled lotus-flower.7In his book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, p. 131 ff, Rudolf Steiner speaks of the “lotus-flowers” as organs in the astral body connected with the development of supersensible perception. He points out that the name “lotus-flower” is only a traditional metaphorical designation. These organs are also known in technical esoteric language as “wheels ” or “chakrams.” The last clairvoyant gift is sacrificed, the others having already been laid aside in earlier times In order that this bodily constitution might be preserved in Isaac, the last clairvoyant gift, the gift of the ram, the two-petalled lotus-flower is sacrificed.
As the mission of the Hebrew people progresses, these Abrahamitic faculties are transmitted from generation to generation. Whenever the old clairvoyance reappears as an atavistic element, whenever any individual sees once more into the spiritual world, the immediate reaction is that he is cast out from his people, he is not tolerated within the community. Antipathy against this gift of the ram expresses itself in direct hostility. This is exemplified in the enmity meted out to Joseph. Prophetic illuminations from the spiritual world come to Joseph in his dreams. Quite naturally he is thrust out from his people, because the gift he possesses is not in keeping with their mission, because a heritage of ancient clairvoyance appears again in him. Such is the profound meaning of the story here narrated.
On the other hand we see that something essential for the development of the Hebrew people and the fulfilment of their mission is in turn provided through Joseph, that is, through the very personality in whom was preserved a heritage which the Hebrew people could only regard as belonging to the age before Abraham. In a certain sense the gate to the world, from which, through the old shadowy clairvoyance, the ancient Indian and Persian civilisations had received their religions, was closed against the Hebrew people. That gate being closed, they now looked out into the world, classified it according to measure and number, and in its all-embracing unity they beheld Jahve or Jehovah. One thing more they knew, and that was that the visible world they beheld around them and which found its unity as being entirely the creation of Jehovah, was of the same nature as the Egohood of mankind.
But within this race-community, no Imaginations, no inner, personal experiences arose regarding these things. At that time this people themselves had no such inner experiences. Therefore it was necessary that they should be taught from outside, that they should learn from a people who still had these experiences. And so Joseph forms the link between the ancient Hebrew people and the Egyptians, the people from whom could be learnt those things of which the ancient Hebrews themselves had no longer actual experience. The whole picture which a man to-day is able to form out of his own inner experiences, the knowledge and experience derived from the outer world and from inner imagination—this had to be acquired at that time by contacting a people in whom such experiences still abounded—the Egyptian people. Harmony had to be established between inner faculties of this nature and what was acquired by the ancient Hebrews through mathematical logic and reasoning. But contact with the Egyptian people could be initiated only by a personality who himself possessed in some measure this faculty of Imagination. Joseph was the appropriate link because he still possessed this faculty.
There were two reasons why he could be of help to the Egyptians.—Firstly, he was gifted with the old clairvoyance belonging to the age before Abraham, and this enabled him to understand and interpret what the ancient Egyptians obtained through their clairvoyance. But what the Egyptian people did not possess was the faculty of mathematical logic—that is to say, they were not able to apply their powers of Imagination to physical life. Hence Pharaoh was incapable of effective action when unprecedented events befell. Imaginations were accessible, but when unprecedented factors occurred, to weigh up and assess intelligently what steps were necessary and to take appropriate measures, required a different faculty, which the Egyptians did not possess. Because Joseph possessed this faculty he was able to give the right counsels at the Egyptian court and so became the appropriate personality to form the link between the Hebrew people and the Egyptians. In this way, through him the Jahve-doctrine—which until then might be described as a synthesis of outer reality in the form of a mathematical world-picture—received colour and substance from the inner faculty of Imagination possessed by the Egyptians.
The actual harmonising and unification of the ancient Egyptian clairvoyant experiences with the Hebrew experience of the outer world-order was effected by Moses.8This role of Moses is indicated in his traditional representation as having two ram's horns springing from his forehead. Once this had been achieved, the Hebrew people could be led back again and proceed to work out, in their own way and in accordance with their own nature, what had been acquired in Egypt—though not in the form of actual experiences. For it was essential, as we have seen, that their particular gift should not be mingled with that of any other people, that the quality inherent in their own blood should remain pure and unadulterated. At the same time, the fruits of the spiritual experience of the ancient world had also to be preserved; and so the ancient heritage which still survived in the wisdom of the Egyptians was inculcated, through Moses, into the Hebrew people with their faculties of mathematical logic. Then this people had again to be extricated from that relationship, for they were destined to inherit that new faculty which could operate only through the descendants of Abraham.
It was because in the course of their history the blood of this people was regulated in strict accordance with its initial principles, because they developed, as they did, in this direction, through their successive generations, that it became possible at a certain definite point of time that there should issue from their stock the body of the Jesus-child, (See Appendix II, p. 75) into which the personality of Zarathustra could incarnate. But in order to achieve this goal the ancient Hebrew people had to grow strong and powerful.
If in the light of St. Matthew's Gospel we study the times of the Judges and Kings and follow the destinies of the ancient Hebrews, we shall see that even the circumstances which seem to indicate that this people is going astray, were for a definite purpose. Above all was it necessary that the misfortune of being led into captivity in Babylon should befall them. We shall see that their racial qualities had developed to the point when it was necessary that they should be brought into contact with the other side of the ancient tradition, as it existed in Babylon. The Hebrew people had reached sufficient maturity to be united once again with faculties that had been abandoned.—That is one side of the picture.
The other side is that at the very time when the Hebrew people were brought into contact with the Babylonians a great Teacher from the East was working there, with the result that it was possible for some of the best among the Hebrews to receive the illumination of his teaching This was the time when Zarathustra—in the person of Nazarathos or Zaratas—was teaching in the regions whither the Hebrews were led. Some of the greatest of the Prophets came under his influence. In this way it became possible to inculcate into the Hebrew people what was needed when their blood had already reached a certain stage of development, and influences from outside were required.
We shall not go very far wrong if we compare this whole racial evolution with the gradual growth of the individual human being. When a child is born, it remains until its seventh year in the bodily care of the parents. During this period, the influences that affect it are mainly at the physical level. Then begins the phase inaugurated by the birth—in a real sense—of the etheric body. Development is based on the elaboration of the memory, on which depends the healthy growth of all the possibilities of the etheric body. The beginning of the third period may be described by saying that the human being now enters into relation with the external world through his astral body, at which stage he must acquire the faculty of individual judgment.—The ancient Hebrew people passed through these phases of development in a special way. The first period—from Abraham to the time of the early Kings—may be compared with the first period of the life of the individual human being up to the seventh year. Everything that then happened was for the purpose of establishing in them the particular qualities of their blood. Abraham's journeyings, the development of the twelve tribes, the introduction of the Mosaic laws, the perils in the desert—all these happenings can be compared with what flows into the human being on the physical plane during the first seven years of life. Then comes the second period: the inner consolidation of the race, the rulership of the Kings up to the time of the captivity in Babylon.—Then follows the third stage, when the influence of Chaldean wisdom is brought to bear upon the Hebrews. And the Leader, through whom at that time-600 to 550 B.C.—was released the inflow of this oriental influence into the Hebrew people, was none other than the Individuality who in ancient Persia had been Zarathustra. Thus already at the time of the Babylonian captivity Zarathustra was preparing the way that would lead to the finding of a suitable bodily organism. So down the generations from Abraham onwards there developed more and more the requisite conditions for the birth of the bodily organism in which Zarathustra could reincarnate.
The threefold grouping indicated in the genealogy at the beginning of St. Matthew's Gospel gives a wonderfully faithful picture of this evolutionary process. There are three times 14 generations. “From Abraham to David, 14 generations; from David to the time of the Babylonian captivity, 14 generations; from the Babylonian capitivity to Christ-Jesus, 14 generations.” (St. Matthew I. 17) There are three times 14, that is, 42 generations. This is an indication that the bodily constitution of Jesus is an embodiment of the purest extract of all that had been in preparation from Abraham downwards, through all the vicissitudes and destinies undergone by the ancient Hebrew people. Finally a human being must appear, who in his soul and in his deeds will express all the qualities matured in the race, in his individual personality. The whole development of the Hebrew people from the time of Abraham was to reach its culmination in a single man—in the Jesus of St. Matthew's Gospel.
Such a culmination can be reached only if the whole course of preceding development is recapitulated in a spiritual way. Zarathustra goes forthin a spiritual sense from the Mysteries—from Ur of the Chaldees, the same region whence Abraham had been called. It is there that the “Golden Star” first appears, and then goes forth, followed by the Magi of the land. What had come to pass physically through Abraham is now re-enacted spiritually. The star which the Magi follow moves in spiritual fashion along the path once travelled by Abraham. The star taking this path and coming to rest upon the birthplace is the incarnating Zarathustra himself. This is the moment when the Zarathustra-Individuality incarnates in the child Jesus of Bethlehem. The Magi knew that, in following the star, they were following their great Teacher, Zarathustra, on his way to reincarnation.
It is now a matter of perceiving how this path continues and of realising how the purest extract of the whole evolution of the Hebrew people is actually present in the personality of the Jesus described in St. Matthew's Gospel. Firstly, we see that spiritually the sacrificial offering of Isaac is repeated in the offering of gold, frankincense and myrrh brought by the three Magi from the East. We are reminded, too, of other happenings among the ancient Hebrew people. The circumstances associated with the birth of this Jesus-Child are like a reflection of the destinies of the ancient Hebrews. Among them was a Joseph who in his dreams possessed an inherited gift and was able to form the link between the Hebrew and the Egyptian peoples; now again there is a Joseph who has dreams and to whom it is shown in a dream, not only that Jesus will be born, but that he must go with Jesus to Egypt.
The path of Zarathustra—now living in the body of the Jesus-child—continues. Just as he had followed the path taken by Abraham on the physical plane from Ur in Chaldea to Canaan, so he follows it further still, to Egypt. Like the Hebrew people, the Jesus-child is brought back again from Egypt. Thus, in the appearance of the Bethlehem Jesus—only later called the Nazarene—there is a recapitulation of the whole destiny of the ancient Hebrew people up to the return from Egypt to Palestine, the Promised Land. Events in the outer history of the Hebrew people, extending over long, long centuries, are now recapitulated in the destiny of that human being who was Zarathustra incarnated in the body of the Bethlehem Jesus. This—conceived on the vast scale in which it is presented in the Gospel of St. Matthew—is the secret of human history in general. Human history cannot be understood unless it is recognised that in the destiny of every great Individuality charged with a special mission the whole process of development through centuries is recapitulated; that such Individualities represent the essence and extract of what has been achieved in history through long ages. Far, far more than this was, of course, to be embodied in Christ-Jesus, but the bodily constitution had first to be prepared, and this was possible only through the special measures that have been described.
What kind of conditions prevailed at the point of time when the whole history of the Hebrew people was to be recapitulated in the personality of Jesus?—In what way was it a turning-point of history? Let us here review the following facts of the evolutionary process of which for some years now I have been trying to give you a picture.
Humanity proceeded from a primeval stage of evolution when everything that brought human beings together in love was bound up with the blood-tie. Love was determined by this factor, and marriage took place only between human beings very closely related by blood. In those ancient times there was no other kind of love than that which was bound up with blood-relationship. From this ‘close marriage' humanity had its beginnings. But intermingling of the particular blood-ties gradually became more general in widely separated territories of the earth. Among all the peoples, however, there is evidence to show that they were taken aback when men and women belonging to one racial stock marry into a different stock, when the transition to ‘distant marriage' begins. In all the myths and sagas, in the legend of Gudrun, for example, this is described as an unwonted happening, one that causes astonishment.
Two streams were in operation during this phase of human evolution. In the process where human beings are brought together through ties of blood there was working the Divine-Spiritual principle which strives to unite humanity, to unify all mankind. Working in opposition to this was the Luciferic principle which strives to make every human being independent, to endow the single individual with the greatest possible power. Both these principles must be present in human nature, both forces must take effect in the evolution of humanity.
These two sets of powers, then, were at work in the progressive evolution of humanity: the Divine- Spiritual powers on the one hand, and on the other, the Luciferic powers, spirit-beings who had not completed their evolution on the Old Moon and who wished to prevent men from losing their identity as separate beings, and to make them entirely independent and self-sufficient. These opposing powers were always at work, and as a result, the Ego of man, a product of the earth, was perpetually being torn to this side or to that—towards human love on the one side and towards inner self-sufficiency on the other.
Now at a particular point of time the interworking of these two powers reached a kind of crisis. This crisis, this crucial condition in human affairs set in when, as the result of the deeds of the Roman Empire, widespread intermingling took place among the peoples in many territories of the earth. This was a most crucial moment in the evolution of humanity, the moment when the still undecided question of close or distant marriage came to its issue. Men were facing the danger either of not developing the Ego by remaining within the separate racial stocks, or of losing all connection with humanity as such and becoming independent, self-sufficient, egoistic individuals.
This decisive point had been reached. What must now happen? Something quite specific. The human Ego must become sufficiently mature to develop within itself what may for the first time properly be called freedom, and to unfold from within itself, in freedom, the love which, because it now belongs to the life of soul, is no longer bound up with the blood-tie. The Ego was facing this decisive issue: to meet it, it must be completely liberated, must acquire full consciousness of itself. Thus, with the exception of the oriental peoples, the whole of mankind belonging to the old world was confronting a birth of the Ego through which this Ego could know the love that springs from its own inmost being. Out of freedom the Ego was to unfold love, and out of love, freedom. Only a being who develops an Ego of this nature is in the real sense man. For a being whose love is determined solely by ties of blood is coerced into love, and merely gives expression to what, at a lower level, happens in the animal kingdom. It was at this point of history of which we have just been speaking that full manhood became, for the first time, a possibility. At this point the influence which made man truly man was to stream over the earth.
And now let us recall what I have said many times: that man is a being ensheathed in three members: the physical body which he has in common with the minerals, the etheric body which he has in common with the plants, and the astral body which up to this point of time had been the seat of the kind of love he has in common with the animals. With his fully developed Ego man is the crown of earthly creation. All other beings of the earth have names that can be given them from outside; they are objective realities. The “Ego” has a name that can be given only by itself. In the Ego, the ‘I', the Godhead speaks; earthly conditions have no longer a voice. In the ‘I' the kingdom of the Spirit speaks; the Spirit from the heavens speaks when the ‘I' has become fully self-conscious.—It might be said that until that time there were three kingdoms—mineral, plant, animal—and a kingdom which had indeed risen to a higher level than these, but had not yet reached completion, had not yet been imbued with its full super-earthly reality of being. This kingdom exists by virtue of the fact that into an Egohood there enters that which is otherwise nowhere to be found on earth, namely, the spiritual world, the kingdom of heaven.—This kingdom is called in the Bible “the kingdom—or the kingdoms—of heaven”, or, more usually “the kingdom of God.”
“The kingdom of heaven” is simply an alternative expression for “the kingdom of man.” When we speak of mineral, plant and animal kingdoms we can add in the words of the Bible a fourth, “the kingdom of man.” Men who at that time, with the insight acquired in the Mysteries, could look back into the whole course of human evolution, could speak as follows: “Look back to ancient times: humanity was then only in process of being led to the level of manhood, for the kingdom of heaven is to come to the earth.”—So spoke the forerunner of Christ-Jesus, and Christ-Jesus Himself: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand”. In these words they indicated the essential quality of that time. It was the age when the birth of Christ-Jesus had to take place. He was to bring to mankind the forces through which the Ego would be able to unfold, and develop its own inherent nature.
The whole evolution of humanity thus divides itself into two main phases: the phase when the kingdom of heaven is not yet on the earth, and the phase when the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of man in its highest sense, is actually on the earth. The ancient Hebrew people was chosen to provide the bodily constitution, the bodily sheaths, which would so develop as to become fit to receive the bearer of this kingdom of heaven.
These are the secrets revealed when the historical aspect of events is studied in the light of the deepest meaning of the Gospel of St. Matthew. To the two streams which we have seen9See Rudolf Steiner's lecture-course: The Gospel of St. Luke. were contributory to Christianity—the streams of Zarathustrianism and Buddhism—we must add a third, namely, the stream contributed by the ancient Hebrew people. We see how these great Leaders, Buddha and Zarathustra, desired to bring to mankind the offering of the streams of spiritual life inaugurated by them. But a temple had to be provided and this could be done only through the ancient Hebrew people, who produced the temple which was the physical body of Jesus. Into the temple the two streams of Zarathustra and Buddha could bring their offerings. The first offering was made by Zarathustra, in that he incarnated in this body; the later offering was made by the Buddha, in that he rayed forth his Nirmanakaya,10The spiritual reality resulting from his earthly existence. into the other Jesus. (See Appendix II, p. 75)—In this way the two streams flow into a unity.
I have only been able to-day to give you a slight sketch of these deeper secrets and I have had to express it in a somewhat dogmatic way. We must continue our study on some other occasion, in order that we may acquire a clearer picture of the mission of the ancient Hebrew people and of the emergence of Christ-Jesus from this people. Then will become manifest to us this unique event, that out of history itself, out of the historical flow of evolution, there evolved a Being of everlasting value, imperishable and eternal. So shall we gradually come to understand how, out of a transient world, that was able to spring which will endure for eternity.
Die Mission des Althebräischen Volkes
In der letzten Vortragsstunde wurde bereits auseinandergesetzt, daß wir einige Betrachtungen anstellen wollen über die Evangelien, und es wurde der Grund charakterisiert, warum wir uns jetzt einiges aus dem Matthäus-Evangelium vorhalten wollen. Es ist in gewisser Beziehung die menschlichste Seite des Christus Jesus, die uns in diesem Evangelium entgegentritt. Auf der andern Seite ist darin auch gegeben ein vollständiger Überblick über die geschichtlichen Ereignisse, welche zeigen, wie der Christus Jesus aus der Menschheit selber herauswächst. Da damit gezeigt ist, wie die größte Erscheinung der Erdenentwickelung aus der Geschichte herausgewachsen ist, so liegt es nahe zu vermuten, daß die tieferen Geheimnisse des Menschheitswerdens uns gerade in diesem Evangelium entgegentreten können.
Ich möchte auch heute wiederum nicht unterlassen, ausdrücklich zu betonen, daß die Dinge, die bei dieser Gelegenheit gesagt werden, subtil sind, und daß man sehr leicht die geisteswissenschaftliche Bewegung schwer schädigen kann, wenn man in irgendeiner einseitigen Weise das, was diese Geheimnisse anbetrifft, vor die Welt bringt. Daher sollte mit einer jeglichen Mitteilung über diese Dinge die größtdenkbare Vorsicht verknüpft werden. Es wäre nicht einmal zuviel verlangt, wenn ein jeder sich in die Geduld finden würde, erst dann über ein Christus-Bild etwas mitzuteilen, wenn er dasselbe von den vier Seiten her charakterisiert bekommen hat, die in den vier Evangelien gegeben sind. An der Betrachtung über das Lukas-Evangelium ist schon zu ersehen, wie die beiden großen vorchristlichen Geistesströmungen, der Zarathustrismus und das, was im Buddhismus seinen vorchristlichen Abschluß erlangt, zusammengeflossen sind, um sich zu ergießen in den großen christlichen Strom des irdischen Geisteslebens.
Das Matthäus-Evangelium hat es zuerst mit einem ganz andern Thema zu tun, nämlich zu zeigen, wie jene Körperlichkeit, in der sich inkarnierte die Individualität des Zoroaster, herauswächst aus dem althebräischen Volke. Es setzt sich zur Aufgabe, zu zeigen, welchen Anteil das althebräische Volk an der gesamten Entwickelung der Menschheit hat. Es könnte leicht jemand meinen, wenn die Individualität des Zoroaster sich verkörpert hat in dem bethlehemitischen Jesus, daß dann nur die Körperlichkeit herausgeboren wäre aus dem althebräischen Volke und daß damit nichts anderes gesagt wäre, als daß Zoroaster wiedergeboren wäre in einer Leiblichkeit, die aus dem althebräischen Volke herauswuchs. Wollte man eine solche Gefühlsnuance hineinlegen, so ergäbe sich ein ganz falsches Bild von der Wahrheit.
Durch solche Betrachtungen soll uns immer klarer werden, daß eine solche Individualität, wie die des Zarathustra, die Leiblichkeit als Instrument braucht. Wenn aus den höchsten der Welten, aus der göttlichsten der göttlichen Welten irgendeine Individualität auf die Erde herabstiege und sich in einer ungeeigneten Körperlichkeit inkarnierte, so könnte sie aus einer solchen nichts anderes machen als das, wozu dieselbe das Instrument eben sein kann. Diese falsche Gefühlsnuance, von der eben gesprochen worden ist, könnte leicht mancherlei Mißverständnisse herbeiführen. In der theosophischen Bewegung hat man lange nicht verstanden, daß des Menschen Leiblichkeit der Tempel der Seele ist. Man muß berücksichtigen, was von uns schon so oft betont worden ist: daß das menschliche Ich in drei Hüllen wohnt, von denen eine jede älter ist als das Ich selber. Dieses Ich ist ein Erdenwesen, das jüngste unter den menschlichen Gliedern. Der astralische Leib nahm auf dem alten Monde, der ätherische oder Lebensleib auf der alten Sonne seinen Anfang, hat also drei planetarische Entwickelungsstufen hinter sich; der physische Leib ist in seiner Art der vollkommenste Teil und hat vier planetarische Entwickelungsstufen hinter sich. Der physische Leib ist von Äon zu Äon ausgestaltet worden, so daß er heute dieses vollkommene Werkzeug ist, in dem das menschliche Ich sich entwickeln konnte, um den Menschen allmählich wieder zu den Höhen des Geistigen aufsteigen zu lassen. Wenn der physische Leib so unvollkommen wäre wie der astralische Leib und das Ich, so wäre eine menschliche Entwickelung auf Erden nicht möglich.
Nehmen Sie das in vollem Ernste, so können Sie nicht mehr eine falsche Gefühlsnuance verbinden mit der Vorstellung, daß der Zoroaster aus dem hebräischen Volke herausgeboren worden sei. Jenes Volk mußte eben so beschaffen sein, wie es war, wenn es die Leiblichkeit liefern sollte für eine Wesenheit wie den Zarathustra. Wenn wir uns vorstellen, daß diese Wesenheit, seit jener Zeit, als sie noch Lehrer des urpersischen Volkes war, sich immer höher entwickelt hat, so müssen wir eben sagen, daß es nötig war, ihr ein Instrument zu geben aus einer Volkheit heraus von einer seiner Wesenheit angemessenen Größe. Ein für ihn taugliches Instrument mußte geschaffen werden. Durch Saturn, Sonne, Mond und Erde hindurch haben sich die Götter bemüht, den physischen Leib des Menschen im allgemeinen auszugestalten. Daraus dürfen wir wohl den Schluß ziehen, daß die intimere Zubereitung eines Menschenleibes manches notwendig machte an geistig-göttlicher Arbeit, um den Menschenleib in der speziellen Form zur Ausbildung zu bringen, wie er dem Zarathustra damals diente.
Damit solches möglich war, mußte die ganze Geschichte des althebräischen Volkes so ablaufen, wie sie eben abgelaufen ist. Die Akasha-Chronik zeigt uns, daß das, was im Alten Testament da ist, wirklich mit den geschichtlichen Tatsachen übereinstimmt. Es mußte sozusagen im althebräischen Volke alles so eingerichtet sein, daß es zuletzt in jener einen Persönlichkeit des bethlehemitischen Jesus gipfelte. Dazu aber waren besondere Einrichtungen notwendig. Es war notwendig, daß aus der Gesamtsumme der Kultur der nachatlantischen Zeit dasjenige herausgenommen wurde, was am meisten fähig war, jene Kräfte in der Menschheit zu entwickeln, die entwickelt werden mußten, auf daß die Menschheit etwas an die Stelle des alten hellseherischen Vermögens setzen konnte. Es war gerade das hebräische Volk dazu ausersehen, zunächst eine solche Körperlichkeit darzubieten, die bis in die feinsten Fasern des Gehirns hinein so organisiert war, daß das, was wir Erkenntnis der Welt nennen, ohne den Einfluß des alten Hellsehens zustande kam. Das sollte die Mission dieses Volkes sein. In dem Stammvater dieses Volkes, in Abraham, war auch tatsächlich eine solche Individualität auserlesen, daß dessen Leiblichkeit ein geeignetes Instrument war für das urteilende Denken. Alles, was vorher groß und bedeutend war, stand noch unter den Nachwirkungen alten Hellsehens. Nun sollte aber eine Persönlichkeit ausersehen werden, welche das geeignetste Gehirn hatte, um sich nicht drängen und stoßen zu lassen von den hellseherischen Imaginationen und Intuitionen, sondern berufen war, die Dinge rein mit dem Verstande zu betrachten. Dazu aber bedurfte es eines besonders eingerichteten Gehirnes, und die Persönlichkeit, die dieses Gehirn hatte, mußte ausersehen werden. Diese haben wir zu sehen in Abram oder Abraham.
Und auch das stimmt mit den Beobachtungen der Akasha-Chronik überein, daß die Richtung, aus der jener Abraham herkam, von jenseits des Euphrat nach dem Westen ging, gegen Kanaan zunächst. Abraham wurde hergeholt, wie es in der Bibel heißt, aus Ur inChaldäa. Während in der ägyptischen sowohl wie in der chaldäisch-babylonischen Kultur noch die Nachklänge des alten dämmerhaften Hellsehens da waren, wurde aus dem chaldäischen Volke ein Individuum auserlesen, welches nicht mehr darauf aufbaute, sondern auf die Beobachtungen der Erscheinungen der Außenwelt. Damit sollte jene Kultur eingeleitet werden, deren Früchte noch heute unserer ganzen westlichen Kultur und Zivilisation einverleibt sind. Jenes kombinatorische Denken, die mathematische Logik, wurde durch Abraham eingeleitet; ihn sah man bis ins Mittelalter hinein in gewissem Sinne als Vertreter der Arithmetik an. Die ganze Anlage seines Denkens war eben eine solche, die Welt nach dem Verhältnis von Maß und Zahl anzusehen.
Eine derartig beschaffene Persönlichkeit war dazu geeignet, ein lebendiges Verhältnis zu gewinnen zu derjenigen Gottheit, welche sich offenbaren sollte durch das Medium der Außenwelt. Alle andern Gottheiten außer Jahve kündigten sich im Inneren der menschlichen Seele an, und man mußte Imagination, Intuition und so weiter in seiner Seele erwecken, um etwas von ihnen zu wissen. Im alten Indien sah man hinaus, sah die Sonne aufgehen, sah die verschiedenen Reiche der Erde, die Vorgänge des Luftkreises, des Meeres und so weiter, aber all das betrachtete man als eine große Täuschung, als Maja, worin der Inder nichts von einer Göttlichkeit gefunden hätte, wenn er sie nicht durch innere Imagination gewonnen und dann hinterher mit den Erscheinungen der Außenwelt in Beziehung gebracht hätte. Auch bei Zarathustra haben wir es uns so zu denken, daß er nicht hätte hinweisen können auf das große Sonnenwesen, wenn ihm nicht im Inneren aufgegangen wäre das große Wesen des Ahura Mazdao. Besonders aber sehen wir dies an den ägyptischen Gottheiten, die ganz aus inneren Seelenerlebnissen herausgeholt und nachher mit äußeren Dingen in Beziehung gebracht werden.
Alles, was an vorhebräischen Gottheiten da war, muß von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus aufgefaßt werden. Jahve jedoch ist diejenige Gottheit, welche einen von außen her anschaut, von außen an den Menschen herankommt, sich in Wind und Wetter offenbart. Wenn der Mensch alles, was in der Außenwelt an Zahl, Maß und Gewicht vorhanden ist, durchdringt, nähert er sich dem Jahvegott. In früherer Zeit war der Gang ein entgegengesetzter. Brahma wurde zuerst im Inneren der Seele erkannt und von da wird dann erst hinausgegangen. Den Jahve jedoch erkennt man zuerst draußen und dann erst kann er auch im eigenen Inneren nachgewiesen werden. Das ist die geistige Seite dessen, was genannt wird: der Bund Jahves mit Abraham. Dieser Mann war eben eine Persönlichkeit, die den Jahve fassen und verstehen konnte. Die Leiblichkeit des Abraham war so, daß dieser den Jahve oder Jehova als den die Welterscheinungen draußen durchlebenden und durchwebenden Gott verstehen konnte.
Nun handelt es sich darum, aus dieser Eigentümlichkeit jenes einen Mannes, des Abraham, die Mission eines ganzen Volkes zu folgern. Es war notwendig, daß Abrahams Geisteskonstitution sich auch auf andere übertrug. Dieselbe ist aber an die physischen Werkzeuge gebunden; denn alles, was nach außen gebracht werden soll, ist gebunden an eine ganz bestimmte Organisation des physischen Leibes. Die alten auf der Grundlage des dämmerhaften Hellsehens aufgebauten Religionen brauchten nicht so viel Gewicht darauf zu legen, ob die einzelnen Teile des Gehirns so oder so geformt waren; das Verständnis des Jehova aber war streng gebunden an die Konstitution des physischen Gehirnes. Nur auf dem Wege der physischen Vererbung innerhalb eines durch Blutsverwandtschaft zusammenhängenden Volkes konnte eine Übertragung solcher Eigenschaften geschehen.
Da mußte etwas ganz Besonderes geschehen. Abraham mußte eine Nachkommenschaft haben, die weiterbaute jene eigenartige Konstitution des physischen Leibes, die bis dahin die Götter aufgebaut hatten und die in Abraham in höchster Blüte vorhanden war. Es mußte nun als selbständig von den Menschen der Aufbau des physischen Leibes in die Hand genommen werden, damit das weitergeführt wurde, was bislang die Götter getan haben, und zwar durch viele Generationen hindurch mußte dies geschehen. Es mußte ein den Jahve verstehendes Gehirn sich durch physische Vererbung erhalten. Der Bund des Jahve mit Abraham sollte auch auf die Nachkommen übergehen. Dazu aber gehörte eine ungeheure Hingebung der Individualität des Abraham an den Jahve; denn man erlangt die Möglichkeit, eine gewisse Konstitution mehr und mehr auszubilden, nur dann, wenn man dieselbe in dem Sinne gebraucht, wie sie geschaffen ist. Wenn man die Hand zum Beispiel besonders geschickt machen will zu einem gewissen Zwecke, so kann das nur geschehen, indem man sie in dem Sinne weiter ausbildet, in dem sie geschaffen ist. Wollte man die physischen Eigenschaften des Gehirns als eines Jahve-Begreifers ausbilden, so mußte diese Hingabe und dieses Begreifen des Jahve bei Abraham einen denkbar höchsten Grad erreichen.
Und das war auch tatsächlich der Fall. In der Bibel wird uns erzählt, wie dies geschah. Eine Hingabe wird dann am größten, wenn man hinopfert, was man selber für die Zukunft werden soll. Abraham soll dem Jahve seinen Sohn Isaak hinopfern. Er würde damit das ganze hebräische Volk hinopfern und alles, was er selber war und was in die Welt durch ihn getragen werden sollte. Abraham war der erste Jehova-Versteher. Wollte er sich diesem ganz ergeben zeigen, so mußte er sich ihm ganz hingeben. Durch Hingabe seines einzigen Sprosses verzichtete er auf jede Fortpflanzung seines Stammes in der Welt.
Und er hat es so weit gebracht in der Hingabe, daß er den Isaak hingeopfert hat; sein Wille war es. Und er bekommt den Isaak wieder zurück. Was heißt das? Das heißt etwas ganz Ungeheures. Er bekommt ihn von Jahve selber zurück, das heißt, Abraham geht so weit, die Mission, die er vermöge der Individualität seines Selbstes hat, nicht durch sich auf die Nachwelt weiter zu übertragen, sondern sie als Gabe des Jahve oder Jehova in seinem eigenen Sohn zu empfangen. Wer sich das überlegt, wird bemerken, daß hierin eine weltgeschichtliche Tatsache liegt, die in die Geheimnisse des geschichtlichen Werdens der Menschheit in unbegrenztem Maße hineinleuchtet.
Nun sehen wir zu, wie die Ereignisse weitergehen. Durch jene Hingabe des Abraham an den Jahve wird es möglich, daß wirklich das sich fortsetzt, was bisher die Götter geschaffen haben. Das, was die physische Menschheit ist, wurde aus dem Weltenall herausgeboren. Wir wissen ja, wie das, was die menschliche Leiblichkeit auf der Erde ist, zusammenhängt nach Zahl, Maß und Gewicht mit all den Gesetzen, welche die Sternenwelten beherrschen. Der Mensch ist aus den Sternenwelten herausgeboren; er trägt in sich die Gesetze der Sternenwelten. Es mußten die Gesetze der Sternenwelten sozusagen hineingeschrieben werden in das durch die Generationen des althebräischen Volkes von Abraham aus herunterfließende Blut. In dem althebräischen Volke mußte alles so geordnet sein, daß der Strom von Gesetzmäßigkeit weiterfloß, der aus dem Weltenall heraus nach Maßgabe von Zahl, Maß und Gewicht den menschlichen physischen Leib geordnet hat im Sinne der Sternenordnung. Das finden wir wieder in einem Ausspruch, der in der Bibel so ungeheuer entstellt ist. So heißt es dort, daß Gott die Israeliten so zahlreich machen will wie die Sterne am Himmel. Gemeint ist aber, daß er in der Art, wie sie sich fortpflanzen und verbreiten auf der Erde, die Gesetze, die Zahlenverhältnisse walten lassen will, wie sie in den Sternen am Himmel herrschen. Nach der Zahlenharmonie der Sterne soll das hebräische Volk in seiner Fortpflanzung geordnet sein.
Wir sehen, wie das geschieht. Isaak hatte zwei Söhne, Jakob und Esau. Wir sehen auch, wie alles das, was da durch das Blut der Generationen hinunterrinnt - während das der Esau-Richtung Angehörige ausgeschaltet und die geeignete Richtung herausgeholt wird -, wie sich das weiter gestaltet. Jakob hatte zwölf Söhne entsprechend den zwölf Teilen des Tierkreises, durch welche die Sonne am Himmel zieht, um die Ordnung der Sterne zu bewirken. Das ist die innere Gesetzmäßigkeit. Es erscheint uns tatsächlich im Leben und in der Fortpflanzungsart des hebräischen Volkes ein Abbild von Zahl und Maß, wie sie am Himmel herrschen. Abraham war bereit, seinen Sohn Isaak zu opfern. Damit hat er seine ganze Mission von Jahve wieder entgegengenommen. An Stelle des Isaak wurde geopfert ein Widder oder Lamm. Was heißt das?
Hier verbirgt sich etwas ungeheuer Tiefes. Jene menschliche Leiblichkeit, die sich fortpflanzen sollte und an welche jene Fähigkeiten gebunden waren, welche das Begreifen der Welt nach Maß und Zahl, nach mathematischer Logik bedingen, sollte erhalten bleiben und als Geschenk des Jahve entgegengenommen werden. Um sie aber unvermischt durch irgend etwas anderes zu haben, war es notwendig, daß verzichtet wurde auf ein jegliches dämmerhaftes altes Hellsehen, daß verzichtet wurde auf allerlei Imaginationen, Intuitionen, auf jedes Einfließen solcher Offenbarungen, wie sie in allen übrigen Religionen der alten Zeiten bis zur chaldäischen und ägyptischen herauf vorhanden sind. Auf jede Gabe aus der geistigen Welt mußte verzichtet werden. Die letzte Gabe aus der geistigen Welt, die noch bleibt, wenn alle früheren verdunkelt sind, wird in der mystischen Symbolik durch den Widder bezeichnet. Die beiden Widderhörner bedeuten: dasOpfer der zweiblättrigen Lotosblume. Die letzte hellseherische Gabe wird hingeopfert, nachdem die früheren schon früher abgelegt worden sind. Um die Leiblichkeit in dieser Organisation in Isaak zu erhalten, wird die letzte hellseherische Fähigkeit, die Widdergabe, die zweiblättrige Lotosblume hier hingeopfert.
Nun lebt das Volk in seiner Mission so weiter, daß gerade diese Abraham-Fähigkeiten sich fortpflanzen von Generation zu Generation. In dem Augenblicke, wo atavistisch wieder auftritt diese Hellsehergabe, wo wieder einer hineinsieht in die geistigen Welten, macht sich eine solche Reaktion geltend, daß diese Persönlichkeit zunächst ausgeschieden wird, daß sie nicht geduldet wird innerhalb der Volksgemeinschaft. Die Antipathie gegen diese Gabe des Widders macht sich geltend in Feindschaft. Das zeigt sich bei Joseph. In seinen Träumen hatte er prophetische Erleuchtungen aus der geistigen Welt. Er wird ganz selbstverständlich herausgeschoben aus dem Volke, weil das, was er hatte, aus der eigentlichen Mission des hebräischen Volkes herausfiel. Von den Brüdern wird er verstoßen, weil in ihm ein Erbstück alter Hellsehergabe wieder auftritt. Deshalb mußte Joseph nach Ägypten gehen, weil er herausfiel aus der Mission seines Volkes.
So bedeutsam sind diese Dinge, die uns da erzählt werden! Nun sehen wir weiter, wie sozusagen gerade durch jene Persönlichkeit, durch welche in einem alten Erbstück erhalten ist das, worauf das alte hebräische Volk nur zurückschauen konnte als auf etwas, was vor Abraham war, wie durch diese Persönlichkeit, durch den Joseph, wiederum das herbeigeführt wird, was zur Entwickelung des althebräischen Volkes so notwendig war zur Erfüllung seiner Mission. Es war in gewisser Weise für das althebräische Volk das Tor geschlossen gegenüber jener Welt, die dazu geführt hatte, durch das alte dämmerhafte Hellsehen dem Indertum, Persertum seine Religion zu geben. Da war das Tor geschlossen. Man sah hinaus in die Welt, ordnete nach Maß und Zahl, und als die Einheit, in die man alles ordnete, erblickte man Jahve oder Jehova. Das einzige, was man noch wußte, war, daß dies, was man draußen erblickte, was in Jahve als Schöpfer der Welterscheinungen einem entgegentrat, eines und dasselbe war mit der menschlichen Ichheit. Aber darüber stiegen keine Imaginationen, keine eigenen inneren Erlebnisse innerhalb dieser Volksgemeinschaften auf. In jener Zeit, sage ich ausdrücklich, gab es darüber keine eigenen Erlebnisse. Deshalb mußte man es auch von außen lernen, das heißt, man mußte es bei einem Volke lernen, das diese Erlebnisse noch hatte.
So bildet die Persönlichkeit des Joseph das Bindeglied zwischen dem althebräischen Volke und den Ägyptern, also dem Volke, bei dem man das lernen konnte, was das althebräische Volk nicht mehr als Erlebnis hatte. Das, was man heute selber zusammenbringen kann, wenn man die eigenen inneren Erlebnisse gehabt hat — die Erkenntnisse, Erlebnisse der Außenwelt und die der inneren Imagination -, das mußte man zusammenbringen dadurch, daß man sich hinbegab zu einem Volke, das diese Erlebnisse noch in hohem Maße hatte, zu dem ägyptischen Volke. Solche innere Fähigkeiten mußte man in Harmonie bringen mit dem, was man selber durch mathematische Logik gewonnen hatte. Aber hinführen konnte zu diesem ägyptischen Volke nur eine solche Persönlichkeit, die selber etwas hatte von solcher Imagination. Joseph war das richtige Verbindungsglied, weil er selber noch solche Fähigkeiten besaß. Denn er konnte den Ägyptern dienen, weil er zweierlei vermochte: Erstens hatte er die alte Hellsehergabe aus der Zeit vor Abraham. Er konnte sich hineinfinden in das, was das alte ägyptische Volk durch Hellsehergabe erlangte. Aber was dieses Volk nicht hatte, war die mathematische Logik, das heißt, es konnte nicht anwenden im physischen Leben das, was es als Imagination besaß. Der Pharao war darum unfähig, die Dinge richtig anzuordnen, als etwas eintrat, was bisher nicht immer dagewesen war. Imaginationen konnte man haben, aber, wenn eine gewisse Unordnung eingetreten war, in kluger Weise maß- und zahlvoll nachzudenken und die Verhältnisse zu ordnen, dazu brauchte es eine andere Fähigkeit, welche die Ägypter nicht besaßen, und diese hatte Joseph. Daher war er fähig, am ägyptischen Hofe die richtigen Ratschläge zu geben. So war er das richtige Verbindungsglied zwischen dem hebräischen Volke und den Ägyptern. Dadurch konnte er es herbeiführen, daß die Jahve- oder Jehova-Lehre, die bis dahin wie eine Zusammenfassung der äußeren Wirklichkeit, wie ein mathematisches Weltbild war, Farbe und Inhalt bekam von der inneren Imagination, die man in Ägypten hatte.
Diesen Zusammenhang und Zusammenklang zwischen altägyptischen Erlebnissen und den Erkenntnissen des Weltzusammenhangs hat Moses gebracht. Als das gemacht war, konnte das Volk wieder zurückgeführt werden, um das in Ägypten Erfahrene, nicht Erlebte, zu verarbeiten nach seiner Art. Denn es handelte sich ja gerade darum, daß diese Gabe unvermischt von andern Völkern erhalten blieb, daß unverfälscht blieb die Blutseigentümlichkeit. Es mußte aber herübergerettet werden das, was die alten Völker hatten gewinnen können. So ist die Erbschaft von alten Zeiten her das, was an Weisheitsgütern im ägyptischen Volke war, durch Moses einverleibt worden dem althebräischen Volke mit seinen mathematisch-logischen Fähigkeiten. Dann aber mußte das Volk wieder herausgerissen werden, denn es sollte ja vererben, was als neue Fähigkeit durch das abrahamitische Volk allein möglich war.
Nun lebte dieses Volk weiter. Dadurch, daß es die Vorbedingungen immer mehr verfeinerte und daß das Blut dieses Volkes sich immer mehr richtete nach diesen Vorbedingungen, daß es sich so ausbildete, wie es sich in der Generationenreihe ausgebildet hat, dadurch war es möglich, in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte aus dem Blute dieses Volkes die Leiblichkeit des Jesuskindes hervorgehen zu lassen, in die einziehen konnte die Persönlichkeit des Zarathustra oder Zoroaster. Dazu mußte dieses Volk stark und mächtig gemacht werden.
Wenn wir im Sinne des Matthäus-Evangeliums weiter die Zeit der Richter und Könige und die verschiedenen Schicksale des althebräischen Volkes verfolgen, so werden wir sehen, wie auch jene Verhältnisse, die uns dieses Volk zeigen so, daß es oftmals abirrt, gerade notwendig waren, um zustande zu bringen, was zustande gekommen ist. Insbesondere war es auch notwendig, daß das Volk das Unglück hatte, das sich ausdrückt in dem Wegführen in die babylonische Gefangenschaft. Wir werden sehen, wie die Volkseigentümlichkeit sich ausgebildet hat, und wie hier notwendig war der Zusammenstoß mit der andern Seite der alten Tradition, die in Babylon vorhanden war, als das Volk reif war, mit dem wieder zusammengeführt zu werden, was es verlassen hatte. Das ist das eine. Das andere ist das, daß gerade in jener Zeit, in welcher das hebräische Volk mit dem babylonischen zusammengeführt wurde, ein großer, gewaltiger Lehrer des Ostens dort lehrte, und daß einige der Besten des hebräischen Volkes noch unter dem Lichte dieses großen Lehrers stehen konnten. Das ist die Zeit, in der Zarathustra als Nazarathos oder Zaratos dort lehrte, in jenen Gegenden, in welche die Juden geführt worden sind. Einige der besten Propheten standen noch unter seinem Einfluß. Da konnte er noch so viel machen an diesem Volke, als man machen muß, wenn das Blut schon eine gewisse Wirkung getan hat, und dann gewisse Einflüsse von außen hinzutreten müssen.
Es ist fast so, daß man nicht sehr weit fehlgeht, wenn man diese ganze Entwickelung mit der Entwickelung des einzelnen, allmählich heranwachsenden Menschen vergleicht. Da haben wir zunächst das Kind, das geboren wird. Es wächst heran bis zum siebenten Jahre und steht in der leiblichen Pflege der Eltern. Da sind es vorzugsweise die Einflüsse des physischen Planes, die einwirken müssen. Dann beginnt die Entwickelung, die dadurch einsetzt, daß der Ätherleib erst in richtiger Weise geboren wird. Die Entwickelung basiert darauf, daß das Gedächtnis ausgebildet wird, daß also das, was im Ätherleib sich heranentwickeln kann, in der richtigen Weise sich erkraftet. In der dritten Periode beginnt das, was man nennen kann: der Mensch tritt mit seinem astralischen Leibe jetzt in ein Verhältnis zur Außenwelt; da muß er aufnehmen das, was man nennen kann Urteilsfähigkeit.
In gewisser Weise machte das althebräische Volk diesen Weg in ganz eigenartiger Weise durch. Es macht zuerst die erste Periode durch, von Abraham bis zur Zeit der ersten Könige. Es ist dies zu vergleichen mit der ersten Periode des einzelnen Lebens bis zum siebenten Jahre. Hier werden alle Dinge getan, die imstande sind, die Bluteigentümlichkeiten zu befestigen. Alles, was da erzählt wird, die Wanderung Abrahams, die Ausbildung der zwölf Stämme, die Eingliederung der mosaischen Gesetzgebung, die Fährlichkeiten in der Wüste, ist zu vergleichen mit dem, was in den ersten sieben Lebensjahren auf den Menschen vom physischen Plane her einfließt. Dann kommt die zweite Periode: die innere Verfestigung, die Königsherrschaft bis zur babylonischen Gefangenschaft. Dann kommt der Einfluß des Chaldäertums, des orientalischen Magiertums auf das hebräische Volk. Und der Leiter, der schon damals, 550 bis 600 vor unserer Zeitrechnung, einfließen ließ in das hebräische Volk diesen orientalischen Einfluß, war schon damals die Individualität des Zarathustra. Und so hat er schon damals vorgearbeitet, um eine geeignete Leiblichkeit zu finden. So entwickeln sich in den Generationen herunter, von Abraham an, immer mehr die Möglichkeit und die Bedingungen, daß herausgeboren werden konnte die geeignete Leiblichkeit, die dann die Wiederverkörperung des Zarathustra sein konnte.
Das Matthäus-Evangelium stellt insbesondere diese Entwickelung ganz wunderbar getreu dar, indem es eine Dreigliederung eintreten läßt. Wir haben drei mal vierzehn Glieder: von Abraham bis David vierzehn Glieder, von David bis zur babylonischen Gefangenschaft vierzehn Glieder, von der babylonischen Gefangenschaft bis zum Christus Jesus wieder vierzehn Glieder. Das gibt drei mal vierzehn oder zweiundvierzig Glieder, gleichsam zeigend, daß in dieser Leiblichkeit des Jesus der Extrakt da ist von alledem, was von Abraham herunter durch die ganzen Schicksale des althebräischen Volkes zubereitet ist. Und jetzt soll auftreten ein Menschenwesen, welches alle die Eigenschaften, die da sozusagen durch die Generationenfolge zusammengestellt sind, seelisch im seelischen Wirken zum Ausdruck bringt, sie in seiner ganzen Persönlichkeit, in einem Menschen zusammenfaßt. Die ganze hebräische Entwickelung seit Abraham sollte in einem Menschen zusammengefaßt werden. Und das sollte gipfeln in dem Jesus des Matthäus-Evangeliums. Wie konnte das geschehen? Das ist nur möglich, wenn wiederholt wird der ganze Entwickelungsgang in seelischer Art. Zarathustra geht ungefähr aus von der Stelle in Ur in Chaldäa, geistig aus den Mysterien heraus, woher Abraham gekommen ist. Der Goldstern erscheint dort zuerst, geht von da aus, die dortigen Magier folgen ihm. Geistig geschieht dasselbe, was physisch durch Abraham geschehen ist. Den Weg, den Abraham gemacht hat, den geht geistig der Stern, dem die Magier folgen: das ist der sich inkarnierende Zarathustra selber, der da den Weg geht, den Abraham gegangen ist, und er senkt sich nieder über der Geburtsstätte. Das ist der Moment, wo sich die Individualität des Zarathustra inkarniert in dem bethlehemitischen Jesuskinde. Die Magier wissen das. Sie folgen dem Stern, das heißt ihrem großen Lehrer Zarathustra, der sich da inkarniert.
Es handelt sich nun darum, daß wirklich der Weg weitergemacht wird, daß wirklich in der Persönlichkeit des einen Jesus darinnen ist der gesamte Extrakt der ganzen hebräischen Entwickelung. Wir schen zunächst, daß im Geiste wiederholt wird ein Opfer, das Isaak-Opfer; wenigstens im Geiste wird es wiederholt durch das Opfer der drei Magier aus dem Morgenlande: Gold, Weihrauch und Myrrhen wurden von ihnen dargebracht. Zu gleicher Zeit sehen wir, daß wiederum etwas eintritt, das erinnert an frühere Ereignisse des althebräischen Volkes. Mit der ganzen Geburt dieses Jesusknaben ist etwas verbunden, das ein Abbild ist der Schicksale des althebräischen Volkes. Da war ein Joseph, der eine Erbschaft hatte im Träumen, und das Verbindungsglied darstellt zwischen dem hebräischen und dem ägyptischen Volke; jetzt ist es wieder ein Joseph, der da Träume hat, und dem im Traume gewiesen wird nicht nur, daß Jesus geboren wird, sondern daß er mit dem Jesus nach Ägypten ziehen solle.
Und nun geht der Weg des Zarathustra in dem Leibe des Jesusknaben weiter. Wie er verfolgt hat den Weg, den auf dem physischen Plane Abraham genommen hat von Ur in Chaldäa bis Kanaan, so geht er jetzt den Weg weiter nach Ägypten - und das Jesuskind wird wieder zurückgeführt aus Ägypten, wie das hebräische Volk zurückgeführt worden ist. Da haben wir beim Auftreten des bethlehemitischen Jesus, den man erst später den Nazarener genannt hat, eine Wiederholung der ganzen Schicksale des althebräischen Volkes bis zur Rückkehr aus Ägypten in das gelobte Land Palästina. Das, was sich da abgespielt hat durch lange, lange Jahrhunderte als äußere Geschichte des hebräischen Volkes, wiederholt sich jetzt in dem Schicksale jener Menschenwesenheit, die den Zarathustra in dem Leibe des bethlehemitischen Jesus darstellt. Dies ist im Sinne des Matthäus-Evangeliums, im Großen gedacht, das Geheimnis menschlicher Geschichte überhaupt. Man versteht menschliche Geschichte nicht, wenn man nicht die einzelnen großen leitenden Individualitäten, die eine besondere Mission haben, so versteht, daß sich in ihrem einzelnen Schicksale die ganze Entwickelung durch Jahrhunderte hindurch wiederholt; daß sie aufnehmen in einer Inkarnation einen Extrakt dessen, was in der Geschichte durch Jahrhunderte geschaffen worden ist. Der Christus Jesus mußte ja noch viel mehr aufnehmen, aber die Leiblichkeit mußte zunächst besonders zubereitet werden, und das konnte nur durch die geschilderten Einrichtungen geschehen.
Wie steht es mit dem Zeitpunkt, in dem gerade jene kurze Rekapitulation der ganzen Geschichte des hebräischen Volkes in der Persönlichkeit des Jesus stattfinden sollte? Was ist das für ein Zeitpunkt in der Geschichte? Dazu nehme man folgende Entwickelungstatsachen zusammen, die ich nun seit Jahren in Ihrer Vorstellungswelt vorzubereiten versucht habe. Nehmen Sie das zusammen: Die Menschheit ging aus von einer uralten Entwickelung, in welcher alles das, was die Menschen zusammenband in Liebe, gebunden war an die Blutsbande. Das liebte sich, was durch Blutsbande verbunden war, und man heiratete nur in engen Blutsverbänden. Eine andere Liebe gab es in den alten Zeiten nicht. Deshalb war die Liebe gebunden an die Blutsverwandtschaft. Das wird genannt Nahehe; von der Nahehe ging die Menschheit aus. Immer mehr sind dann diese einzelnen Verbände in den verschiedensten Gegenden der Erde durcheinandergeworfen worden. Wir können bei allen Völkern verfolgen, wie es als besonderes Ereignis angesehen wird, wenn Männer und Frauen von einem in den andern Stamm hinein heiraten, wenn der Übergang eintritt zur Fernehe. In allen Mythen und Sagen, zum Beispiel im Gudrun-Liede, wird das als besonderes Ereignis charakterisiert. Das machte immer einen besonderen Eindruck. Während dieser Entwickelung der Menschheit sind zwei Strömungen tätig. In diesem Zusammenführen durch Blutsbande wirkte immer schon das göttlichgeistige Prinzip, das die Menschheit zusammenführen soll, das aus der ganzen Menschheit Eines machen soll. Ihm wirkte entgegen das luziferische Prinzip, das jeden Menschen auf sich selbst stellen will, das den einzelnen Menschen so mächtig und groß machen will, als es möglich ist. Beide Prinzipien müssen da sein in der Menschennatur, beide Kräfte müssen in der Menschenentwickelung wirken.
Nun waren diese beiden Mächte am Werke im Verlaufe des Fortschritts der Menschheitsentwickelung: die göttlich-geistigen Mächte und die auf dem Monde zurückgebliebenen luziferischen Mächte, die den Menschen abhalten wollten, sich zu verlieren, ihn vielmehr ganz selbständig machen wollten. Diese beiden Mächte waren in der Menschheitsentwickelung immer am Werke. Dadurch wurde das Ich des Menschen, das ja ein Erdenprodukt ist, immer hin und her getissen. Auf der einen Seite wurde es hingelenkt zur Menschenliebe, auf der andern Seite zur inneren Selbständigkeit. Nun, zu einer bestimmten Zeit trat eine Art von Krisis ein in bezug auf das Zusammenwirken dieser beiden Mächte. Diese Krisis, diese Entscheidung in der Menschheit war da, als durch die Taten des Römischen Reiches für einen großen Kreis der Erde die Völker ganz durcheinandergewürfelt waren. Es war das in der Tat ein Entscheidungsmoment in der Menschheitsentwickelung, der Entscheidungsmoment, wo sich klar herausstellen sollte, was werden sollte aus der unentschiedenen Frage von Nahehe und Fernehe. Die Menschen standen vor der Gefahr, entweder ihr Ich zu verlieren durch Verbleiben in den einzelnen Stämmen oder allen Zusammenhang mit der Menschheit zu verlieren und bloß einzelne, selbständige, egoistische Individuen zu werden. Dieser Zeitpunkt war also da.
Was mußte in diesem Zeitpunkte geschehen? Etwas ganz Bestimmtes. Das menschliche Ich mußte dazu reif werden, das, was man erst Selbständigkeit, Freiheit nennen kann, in sich zu entwickeln, und aus sich heraus frei die seelische Liebe zu entfalten, die nicht mehr an die Blutsbande gebunden war. Das Ich stand vor dem Entscheidungspunkt. Es mußte völlig entfesselt, seiner selbst vollständig bewußt werden. So stand mit Ausnahme der orientalischen Völker die ganze Menschheit der alten Welt vor einer neuen Geburt des Ich, vor einer solchen Geburt des Ich, durch welche dieses Ich zu der aus dem Ich selber herausgeborenen Liebe kommen sollte. Das Ich sollte aus Freiheit heraus die Liebe, und aus der Liebe heraus die Freiheit entwickeln. Und im Grunde genommen ist erst ein solches Wesen ganz Mensch. Der erst ist ein wahrer Mensch, der ein solches Ich entwickelt. Denn der, welcher nur liebt, weil Blutsbande da sind, der wird gestoßen zur Liebe und drückt nur das auf einer höheren Stufe aus, was auf einer niedrigen Stufe auch im Tierreiche vorhanden ist. In dem Momente erst, den wir eben beschrieben haben, ist die volle Menschwerdung dagewesen. In diesem Moment sollte über die Erde hingehen jener Einfluß, der den Menschen zum Menschen machte.
Erinnern Sie sich daran, was ich Ihnen unzählige Male schon gesagt habe: daß der Mensch seiner Wesenheit nach aus drei Gliedern besteht, aus dem physischen Leib, den er hat in Gemeinschaft mit den Mineralien, aus dem ätherischen Leib, den er mit den Pflanzen gemeinsam hat, und aus dem astralischen Leib, in dem im Grunde genommen auch die Liebe bisher gesessen hat, den er gemeinsam hat mit den Tieren. Durch sein voll entwickeltes Ich ist der Mensch die Krone der Erdenschöpfung. Alle andern Erdenwesen haben Namen, die man ihnen von außen geben kann, sie sind Objekte. Das Ich hat einen Namen, den es nur sich selber geben kann. In dem Ich spricht die Gottheit, in dem Ich sprechen nicht mehr irdische Verhältnisse, in dem Ich spricht das Reich des Geistes. Der Geist aus den Himmeln spricht, wenn dieses Ich vollständig zu sich selber gekommen ist. Man könnte sagen, bisher hat es gegeben drei Reiche: das Mineral-, Pflanzen- und das Tierreich, und ein Reich, das sich zwar heraushob aus diesen, das es aber noch nicht zur Vollkommenheit gebracht hat, das noch nicht seine ganze überirdische Wesenheit in sich hineinbekommen hat. Dieses Reich, welches darin besteht, daß in eine Ichheit das, was sonst nirgends auf Erden zu finden ist, die geistige Welt, die Reiche der Himmel hineingenommen werden, dieses Reich nannte man nach dem Sprachgebrauch der Bibel das Reich oder die Reiche der Himmel; in der Bibel wird es gewöhnlich übersetzt «Reich Gottes».
Und das Reich der Himmel ist nichts anderes als eine Umschreibung des Ausdrucks «Menschenreich». Wenn wir sagen: mineralisches, pflanzliches, tierisches Reich, so können wir im Sinne der Bibel als viertes Reich anführen: das Reich der Himmel. Das Menschenreich, so können wir im Sinne der Bibel sagen, ist das Reich der Himmel, so daß der, der dazumal im Mysteriensinne hineinschaute in den ganzen Gang der Menschheitsentwickelung, folgendes sagen konnte: Schaut zurück in vergangene Zeiten; da wurde die Menschheit zur Menschheit geführt, da war noch nicht das Reich der Himmel auf Erden. Jetzt ist der Zeitpunkt da, wo das Reich der Himmel auf Erden kommt. — Dies hat der Vorläufer des Christus Jesus und der Christus Jesus selbst gesagt: «Das Reich der Himmel ist nahe herbeigekommen», und dadurch haben sie ihre Zeit in ihrem tiefsten Wesen charakterisiert. In diese Zeit mußte aber gerade die Geburt des Christus Jesus fallen. Er sollte jene Kräfte der Menschheit bringen, durch welche das Ich jene Eigenschaften entwickeln konnte. So ist die ganze Menschheitsentwickelung in zwei Teile geteilt: in einen vorchristlichen, in dem das Reich der Himmel noch nicht auf der Erde war, und in einen Teil, in dem das Reich der Himmel auf Erden war, das Menschenreich in seiner höchsten Bedeutung. Das althebräische Volk war ausersehen, die leibliche Körperlichkeit, die körperlichen Hüllen zu geben, die gewachsen waren als eine Wesenheit, um den Träger dieses Reiches der Himmel aufzunehmen.
Das sind jene Geheimnisse, die sich ergeben, wenn man im tieferen Sinne anknüpfend an das Matthäus-Evangelium geschichtlich die Sachen ins Auge faßt. So daß wir zu den beiden charakterisierten Strömungen, zu den beiden Beiträgen zum Christentum, die wir kennengelernt haben, zum Zarathustrismus und zum Buddhismus, hinzufügen noch als dritte Strömung die althebräische Strömung, den Beitrag des althebräischen Volkes. Wir könnten jetzt das Folgende sagen: Da waren Führer, wie der Buddha und der Zarathustra. Diese wollten die Opfer ihrer religiösen Strömungen darbringen. Und da mußte ein Tempel auferbaut werden. Der Tempel konnte nur auferbaut werden durch das althebräische Volk. Dieses Volk baute den Tempel der Leiblichkeit des Jesus auf. In diesen Tempel konnten diese beiden ersten Strömungen einziehen. Da opferte zunächst der Zarathustra, indem er sich in diesen Leib verkörperte; da opferte später der Buddha, indem er in den andern Jesus seinen Nirmanakaya einfließen ließ. So fließen diese beiden Strömungen zusammen.
Um Ihnen doch etwas zu geben, was in gewisser Beziehung abgeschlossene Gedanken sind, habe ich Ihnen heute nur ganz flüchtig abstrakte Skizzen geben können von diesen tiefen Geheimnissen. Aber um abgeschlossene Gedanken einmal zu geben, habe ich heute im allgemeinen schematisch charakterisiert. Wir werden das später fortsetzen, um ein Bild zu bekommen von der Mission des althebräischen Volkes und von dem ganz eigenartigen Herauswachsen des Christus Jesus aus diesem Volke. Da wird sich uns das Einzigartige ergeben, wie aus der Geschichte, aus dem zeitlichen Verlauf der Entwickelung, eine Wesenheit herauswächst von einer ewigen Geltung, von einer Geltung von unvergänglicher Dauer. So wird sich allmählich zeigen, wie sich aus einer vergänglichen Welt herausentwickeln konnte dasjenige, was einer Ewigkeit standhalten wird.
IV. The Mission of the Ancient Hebrew People
In the last lecture, we already discussed that we want to make some observations about the Gospels, and we explained why we now want to look at some passages from the Gospel of Matthew. In a certain sense, it is the most human side of Christ Jesus that we encounter in this Gospel. On the other hand, it also provides a complete overview of the historical events that show how Christ Jesus grew out of humanity itself. Since this shows how the greatest phenomenon in the evolution of the earth grew out of history, it is reasonable to assume that the deeper mysteries of human development can be found in this Gospel.
I would not wish to omit emphasizing once again today that the things that are said on this occasion are subtle, and that it is very easy to cause serious damage to the spiritual scientific movement if one presents these mysteries to the world in a one-sided manner. Therefore, any communication about these things should be accompanied by the greatest possible caution. It would not even be too much to ask that everyone have the patience to wait until they have characterized the image of Christ from the four sides given in the four Gospels before communicating anything about it. When considering the Gospel of Luke, it can already be seen how the two great pre-Christian spiritual currents, Zarathustrianism and that which reached its pre-Christian conclusion in Buddhism, flowed together to pour into the great Christian stream of earthly spiritual life.
The Gospel of Matthew deals first with a completely different theme, namely to show how the physicality in which the individuality of Zoroaster incarnated grew out of the ancient Hebrew people. It sets itself the task of showing what part the ancient Hebrew people played in the overall development of humanity. One might easily think that when the individuality of Zoroaster incarnated in the Bethlehem Jesus, only physicality was born out of the ancient Hebrew people, and that this meant nothing more than that Zoroaster was reborn in a physical body that grew out of the ancient Hebrew people. If one were to introduce such a nuance of feeling, one would arrive at a completely false picture of the truth.
Such considerations should make it increasingly clear to us that an individuality such as that of Zarathustra needs physicality as an instrument. If any individuality were to descend from the highest of the worlds, from the most divine of the divine worlds, and incarnate itself in an unsuitable physical body, it could do nothing else with it than what that body is capable of being an instrument for. The false emotional nuance just mentioned could easily lead to all kinds of misunderstandings. In the theosophical movement, it has long been misunderstood that the human body is the temple of the soul. We must take into account what we have emphasized so often: that the human ego dwells in three sheaths, each of which is older than the ego itself. This ego is an earthly being, the youngest of the human members. The astral body originated on the old moon, the etheric or life body on the old sun, and thus has three planetary stages of development behind it; the physical body is the most perfect part of its kind and has four planetary stages of development behind it. The physical body has been developed from eon to eon so that today it is this perfect instrument in which the human I could develop in order to gradually raise human beings back to the heights of the spiritual. If the physical body were as imperfect as the astral body and the I, human development on earth would not be possible.
If you take this seriously, you can no longer associate a false emotional nuance with the idea that Zoroaster was born out of the Hebrew people. That people had to be just as they were if they were to provide the physical body for a being like Zarathustra. If we imagine that this being has developed ever higher since the time when he was still a teacher of the ancient Persian people, we must say that it was necessary to give him an instrument from a people of a size appropriate to his being. A suitable instrument had to be created for him. Through Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth, the gods endeavored to shape the physical body of human beings in general. From this we may well conclude that the more intimate preparation of a human body required a great deal of spiritual-divine work in order to bring the human body into the specific form in which it served Zarathustra at that time.
In order for this to be possible, the entire history of the ancient Hebrew people had to unfold as it did. The Akashic Records show us that what is written in the Old Testament really corresponds to historical facts. Everything in the ancient Hebrew people had to be arranged in such a way that it ultimately culminated in the one personality of the Bethlehem Jesus. But this required special arrangements. It was necessary to take from the total sum of the culture of the post-Atlantean period that which was most capable of developing those forces in humanity that had to be developed so that humanity could replace the old clairvoyant faculty with something else. It was precisely the Hebrew people who were chosen to offer, in the first instance, a physical constitution that was organized down to the finest fibers of the brain in such a way that what we call knowledge of the world could come about without the influence of the old clairvoyance. That was to be the mission of this people. In the progenitor of this people, Abraham, such an individuality was indeed chosen that his physicality was a suitable instrument for judgmental thinking. Everything that had previously been great and significant was still under the aftereffects of old clairvoyance. Now, however, a personality had to be chosen who had the most suitable brain, who would not allow himself to be pushed and shoved by clairvoyant imaginations and intuitions, but who was called to view things purely with the intellect. This required a specially equipped brain, and the personality who had this brain had to be chosen. We see this in Abram or Abraham.
And it also agrees with the observations of the Akashic Records that the direction from which Abraham came was from beyond the Euphrates to the west, initially toward Canaan. Abraham was brought here, as it says in the Bible, from Ur in Chaldea. While in both Egyptian and Chaldean-Babylonian culture the echoes of ancient, dim clairvoyance were still present, an individual was chosen from among the Chaldean people who no longer built on this, but on observations of the phenomena of the outer world. This was to usher in a culture whose fruits are still incorporated into our entire Western culture and civilization today. That combinatorial thinking, mathematical logic, was introduced by Abraham; until well into the Middle Ages, he was regarded in a certain sense as the representative of arithmetic. The whole structure of his thinking was such that he viewed the world in terms of the relationship between measure and number.
A personality of this kind was well suited to gaining a living relationship with the deity that was to reveal itself through the medium of the external world. All other deities except Yahweh announced themselves within the human soul, and one had to awaken imagination, intuition, and so on in one's soul in order to know anything about them. In ancient India, people looked out, saw the sun rise, saw the various kingdoms of the earth, the processes of the air circle, the sea, and so on, but they regarded all this as a great deception, as Maya, in which the Indian would have found nothing divine if he had not gained it through inner imagination and then related it to the phenomena of the outer world. We must also think of Zarathustra in this way, that he could not have pointed to the great sun being if the great being of Ahura Mazdao had not dawned upon him inwardly. We see this particularly in the Egyptian deities, which are drawn entirely from inner soul experiences and subsequently related to external things.
Everything that existed in pre-Hebrew deities must be understood from this point of view. Yahweh, however, is the deity who looks at one from outside, approaches man from outside, and reveals himself in wind and weather. When man penetrates everything that exists in the outer world in terms of number, measure, and weight, he approaches the God Yahweh. In earlier times, the process was the opposite. Brahma was first recognized within the soul, and only then did one go out into the world. Yahweh, however, is first recognized outside, and only then can he be found within oneself. This is the spiritual side of what is called Yahweh's covenant with Abraham. This man was a personality who could grasp and understand Yahweh. Abraham's physical nature was such that he could understand Yahweh or Jehovah as the God who lives through and weaves through the phenomena of the world outside.
Now it is a matter of deducing the mission of an entire people from this peculiarity of that one man, Abraham. It was necessary that Abraham's spiritual constitution be transferred to others. However, this is bound to physical instruments, for everything that is to be brought out into the open is bound to a very specific organization of the physical body. The ancient religions, built on the basis of dim clairvoyance, did not need to attach so much importance to whether the individual parts of the brain were shaped in this way or that; but the understanding of Jehovah was strictly bound to the constitution of the physical brain. Only through physical inheritance within a people connected by blood could such characteristics be transmitted.
Something very special had to happen. Abraham had to have descendants who would continue to develop that peculiar constitution of the physical body which the gods had built up until then and which was present in Abraham in its highest form. The construction of the physical body now had to be taken into the hands of human beings independently, so that what the gods had done so far could be continued, and this had to be done through many generations. A brain capable of understanding Yahweh had to be preserved through physical inheritance. Yahweh's covenant with Abraham was also to be passed on to his descendants. This, however, required an enormous devotion of Abraham's individuality to Yahweh, for it is only possible to develop a certain constitution more and more if one uses it in the sense in which it was created. If, for example, one wants to make one's hand particularly skillful for a certain purpose, this can only be achieved by training it in the sense in which it was created. If one wanted to develop the physical characteristics of the brain as a Yahweh-understander, this devotion and understanding of Yahweh had to reach the highest conceivable degree in Abraham.
And that was indeed the case. The Bible tells us how this happened. Devotion is greatest when one sacrifices what one is destined to become in the future. Abraham was to sacrifice his son Isaac to Yahweh. In doing so, he would sacrifice the entire Hebrew people and everything that he himself was and everything that was to be brought into the world through him. Abraham was the first to understand Jehovah. If he wanted to show his complete devotion to him, he had to give himself completely. By sacrificing his only son, he renounced any continuation of his lineage in the world.
And he went so far in his devotion that he sacrificed Isaac; it was his will. And he gets Isaac back. What does that mean? It means something quite extraordinary. He gets him back from Yahweh himself, which means that Abraham goes so far as not to pass on the mission he has by virtue of his individuality to posterity through himself, but to receive it as a gift from Yahweh or Jehovah in his own son. Anyone who thinks about this will realize that this is a world-historical fact that sheds light on the mysteries of the historical development of humanity to an unlimited extent.
Now let us see how events unfold. Through Abraham's devotion to Yahweh, it becomes possible for what the gods have created so far to continue. What physical humanity is was born out of the universe. We know how what constitutes human physicality on earth is connected in number, measure, and weight with all the laws that govern the starry worlds. Human beings were born out of the starry worlds; they carry within themselves the laws of the starry worlds. The laws of the starry worlds had to be written, so to speak, into the blood flowing down through the generations of the ancient Hebrew people from Abraham. In the ancient Hebrew people, everything had to be so ordered that the stream of lawfulness continued to flow, which from the universe, according to number, measure, and weight, ordered the human physical body in accordance with the order of the stars. We find this again in a saying that is so terribly distorted in the Bible. It says there that God wants to make the Israelites as numerous as the stars in the sky. But what is meant is that He wants to govern the laws and numerical ratios that prevail in the stars in the sky in the way that they reproduce and spread on earth. According to the numerical harmony of the stars, the Hebrew people are to be ordered in their reproduction.
We see how this happens. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. We also see how everything that flows down through the blood of the generations—while those belonging to the Esau line are eliminated and the suitable line is brought out—continues to develop. Jacob had twelve sons corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac through which the sun moves in the sky to bring about the order of the stars. This is the inner law. It actually appears to us in the life and mode of reproduction of the Hebrew people as a reflection of the numbers and measures that prevail in the heavens. Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. In doing so, he accepted his entire mission from Yahweh. Instead of Isaac, a ram or lamb was sacrificed. What does this mean?
There is something tremendously profound hidden here. That human physicality, which was to reproduce itself and to which those abilities were bound that determine the understanding of the world according to measure and number, according to mathematical logic, was to be preserved and accepted as a gift from Yahweh. But in order to have it unadulterated by anything else, it was necessary to renounce all vague old clairvoyance, to renounce all kinds of imagination, intuition, and any influence of such revelations as exist in all other religions of ancient times up to the Chaldean and Egyptian. Every gift from the spiritual world had to be renounced. The last gift from the spiritual world that remains when all the earlier ones have been obscured is symbolized in mystical symbolism by the ram. The two ram's horns signify the sacrifice of the two-petaled lotus flower. The last clairvoyant gift is sacrificed after the earlier ones have already been renounced. In order to preserve physicality in this organization in Isaac, the last clairvoyant ability, the gift of the ram, the two-petaled lotus flower, is sacrificed here.
Now the people continue to live in their mission in such a way that these Abrahamic abilities are passed on from generation to generation. At the moment when this clairvoyant gift reappears atavistically, when someone again sees into the spiritual worlds, such a reaction arises that this personality is initially excluded, that it is not tolerated within the community. The antipathy toward this gift of the ram manifests itself in hostility. This can be seen in Joseph. In his dreams, he had prophetic revelations from the spiritual world. He is quite naturally pushed out of the people because what he had fell outside the actual mission of the Hebrew people. He is rejected by his brothers because an inherited gift of clairvoyance reappears in him. That is why Joseph had to go to Egypt, because he fell outside the mission of his people.
How significant are these things that are being told to us! Now we see how, through this personality, through whom something that the ancient Hebrew people could only look back on as something that was before Abraham is preserved in an old heirloom, how through this personality, through Joseph, what was so necessary for the development of the ancient Hebrew people to fulfill their mission is brought about again. In a certain sense, the door was closed to the ancient Hebrew people to that world which had led them, through the old, dim clairvoyance, to give their religion to the Indo-Persians. The door was closed. They looked out into the world, arranged everything according to measure and number, and when they saw the unity into which everything was arranged, they saw Yahweh or Jehovah. The only thing one still knew was that what one saw outside, what confronted one in Yahweh as the creator of the world's phenomena, was one and the same as human individuality. But no imaginations, no inner experiences of one's own arose within these communities. At that time, I say expressly, there were no experiences of one's own. Therefore, it had to be learned from outside, that is, it had to be learned from a people who still had these experiences.
Thus, the personality of Joseph forms the link between the ancient Hebrew people and the Egyptians, that is, the people from whom one could learn what the ancient Hebrew people no longer had as experience. What we can bring together today, if we have had our own inner experiences — the insights, experiences of the outer world and those of the inner imagination — had to be brought together by going to a people who still had these experiences to a high degree, to the Egyptian people. Such inner abilities had to be brought into harmony with what one had gained through mathematical logic. But only a personality who himself had something of this imagination could lead people to this Egyptian people. Joseph was the right connecting link because he himself still possessed such abilities. He was able to serve the Egyptians because he was capable of two things: First, he had the ancient clairvoyant gift from the time before Abraham. He was able to find his way into what the ancient Egyptian people had attained through clairvoyance. But what this people lacked was mathematical logic, that is, they could not apply what they possessed as imagination in physical life. The pharaoh was therefore unable to arrange things properly when something happened that had not always been there before. One could have imaginations, but when a certain disorder arose, it required a different ability, which the Egyptians did not possess, to think in a wise, measured, and numerical way and to put things in order. Joseph had this ability. This enabled him to give the right advice at the Egyptian court. He was thus the right link between the Hebrew people and the Egyptians. In this way, he was able to bring about the teaching of Yahweh or Jehovah, which until then had been like a summary of external reality, like a mathematical world view, and give it color and content from the inner imagination that existed in Egypt.
Moses brought about this connection and harmony between ancient Egyptian experiences and the insights into the world context. Once this was done, the people could be led back to process what they had experienced in Egypt, not what they had lived through, in their own way. For it was precisely a matter of preserving this gift unadulterated by other peoples, of keeping the bloodline pure. But what the ancient peoples had been able to gain had to be saved. Thus, the heritage from ancient times, the wisdom of the Egyptian people, was incorporated by Moses into the ancient Hebrew people with their mathematical and logical abilities. But then the people had to be torn away again, for they were to inherit what was possible as a new ability through the Abrahamic people alone.
Now this people lived on. By increasingly refining the preconditions and by the blood of this people becoming increasingly aligned with these preconditions, by developing as it did in the line of generations, it became possible at a certain point in time for the physical body of the child Jesus to emerge from the blood of this people, into which the personality of Zarathustra or Zoroaster could enter. To this end, this people had to be made strong and powerful.
If we continue to follow the Gospel of Matthew and trace the time of the judges and kings and the various destinies of the ancient Hebrew people, we will see how even those circumstances that show us that this people often strayed were precisely what was necessary to bring about what came to pass. In particular, it was also necessary that the people suffered the misfortune expressed in their captivity in Babylon. We will see how the national character developed and how the clash with the other side of the ancient tradition that existed in Babylon was necessary when the people were ready to be reunited with what they had left behind. That is one thing. The other is that precisely at the time when the Hebrew people were brought together with the Babylonian people, a great and powerful teacher from the East was teaching there, and that some of the best of the Hebrew people were still able to stand under the light of this great teacher. This was the time when Zarathustra taught there as Nazarathos or Zaratos, in those regions to which the Jews had been led. Some of the best prophets were still under his influence. There he could still do as much for this people as must be done when the blood has already had a certain effect and then certain influences from outside must be added.
It is almost as if one is not far off the mark when comparing this entire development with the development of the individual human being as he gradually grows up. First we have the child who is born. He grows up to the age of seven and is cared for by his parents. Here it is primarily the influences of the physical plane that must take effect. Then development begins, which starts with the etheric body being born in the right way. This development is based on the formation of memory, so that what can develop in the etheric body can become active in the right way. In the third period, what can be called the astral body enters into a relationship with the outer world; here the human being must take in what can be called the faculty of judgment.
In a certain sense, the ancient Hebrew people went through this process in a very unique way. They first went through the first period, from Abraham to the time of the first kings. This can be compared to the first period of an individual life up to the age of seven. Here, everything is done that is capable of strengthening the characteristics of the blood. Everything that is recounted there—the wanderings of Abraham, the formation of the twelve tribes, the establishment of the Mosaic law, the dangers in the desert—can be compared with what flows into the human being from the physical plane during the first seven years of life. Then comes the second period: inner consolidation, the reign of the kings until the Babylonian captivity. Then comes the influence of Chaldeanism, of Oriental magicianry, on the Hebrew people. And the leader who already at that time, 550 to 600 BC, allowed this Oriental influence to flow into the Hebrew people was already then the individuality of Zarathustra. And so he was already working at that time to find a suitable physical body. Thus, down through the generations, beginning with Abraham, the possibility and conditions developed more and more for the birth of the suitable physical body, which could then be the reincarnation of Zarathustra.
The Gospel of Matthew depicts this development particularly well by introducing a threefold division. We have three times fourteen members: fourteen members from Abraham to David, fourteen members from David to the Babylonian captivity, and again fourteen members from the Babylonian captivity to Christ Jesus. This gives us three times fourteen, or forty-two links, showing, as it were, that in the physical body of Jesus there is the extract of everything that has been prepared from Abraham down through the entire destiny of the ancient Hebrew people. And now a human being was to appear who would express all the qualities that had been brought together, so to speak, through the succession of generations, in his soul activity, summarizing them in his whole personality, in one human being. The entire Hebrew development since Abraham was to be summarized in one human being. And this was to culminate in the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. How could this happen? It is only possible if the entire course of development is repeated in a spiritual way. Zarathustra starts roughly from the place in Ur in Chaldea, spiritually from the mysteries from which Abraham came. The golden star appears there first, goes from there, and the magi there follow it. Spiritually, the same thing happens that happened physically through Abraham. The path that Abraham took is followed spiritually by the star that the magi follow: this is Zarathustra himself incarnating, walking the path that Abraham walked, and he descends upon the place of birth. This is the moment when the individuality of Zarathustra incarnates in the child Jesus of Bethlehem. The magi know this. They follow the star, that is, their great teacher Zarathustra, who is incarnating there.
It is now a matter of continuing on the path, of ensuring that the entire essence of the entire Hebrew development is truly present in the personality of the one Jesus. We first see that a sacrifice is repeated in spirit, the sacrifice of Isaac; at least in spirit it is repeated through the sacrifice of the three magi from the East: they offered gold, frankincense, and myrrh. At the same time, we see that something else occurs that recalls earlier events in the life of the ancient Hebrew people. The entire birth of this child Jesus is connected with something that is a reflection of the fate of the ancient Hebrew people. There was a Joseph who had an inheritance in a dream, and who represents the link between the Hebrew and Egyptian peoples; now it is again a Joseph who has dreams, and who is told in a dream not only that Jesus will be born, but that he should go with Jesus to Egypt.
And now the path of Zarathustra continues in the body of the child Jesus. Just as he followed the path that Abraham took on the physical plane from Ur in Chaldea to Canaan, so now he continues on the path to Egypt—and the child Jesus is led back from Egypt, just as the Hebrew people were led back. Thus, with the appearance of the Jesus of Bethlehem, who was later called the Nazarene, we see a repetition of the entire destiny of the ancient Hebrew people until their return from Egypt to the Promised Land of Palestine. What took place over long, long centuries as the external history of the Hebrew people is now repeated in the fate of that human being who represents Zarathustra in the body of the Bethlehem Jesus. This is, in the sense of the Gospel of Matthew, the great mystery of human history as a whole. One cannot understand human history unless one understands the individual great guiding personalities who have a special mission, in such a way that the entire development through the centuries is repeated in their individual destinies; that they take up in one incarnation an extract of what has been created in history through the centuries. Christ Jesus had to take on much more, but the physical body had to be specially prepared first, and this could only be done through the institutions described.
What about the timing of this brief recapitulation of the entire history of the Hebrew people in the personality of Jesus? What is this moment in history? To answer this, consider the following facts of development, which I have been trying to prepare in your imagination for years. Consider this: Humanity originated from an ancient development in which everything that bound people together in love was bound by blood ties. Those who were connected by blood loved each other, and people married only within close blood ties. There was no other kind of love in ancient times. Therefore, love was bound to blood relationship. This is called incestuous marriage; humanity originated from incestuous marriage. Then, more and more of these individual groups were thrown together in various parts of the world. We can observe among all peoples how it is regarded as a special event when men and women marry into another tribe, when the transition to exogamy occurs. In all myths and legends, for example in the Gudrun song, this is characterized as a special event. It always made a special impression. During this development of humanity, two currents are at work. In this bringing together through blood ties, the divine-spiritual principle has always been at work, which is intended to bring humanity together, to make the whole of humanity one. Working against it is the Luciferic principle, which wants to make every human being independent, which wants to make the individual human being as powerful and great as possible. Both principles must be present in human nature; both forces must be at work in human development.
Now, these two forces were at work in the course of the progress of human development: the divine-spiritual forces and the Luciferic forces that remained on the moon, which wanted to prevent human beings from losing themselves and instead wanted to make them completely independent. These two forces were always at work in human development. As a result, the human ego, which is a product of the earth, was constantly tossed back and forth. On the one hand, it was drawn toward love for humanity, and on the other toward inner independence. Now, at a certain point in time, a kind of crisis arose in relation to the interaction of these two forces. This crisis, this decision in humanity, was there when the actions of the Roman Empire threw the peoples of a large part of the earth into complete confusion. It was indeed a decisive moment in human development, the decisive moment when it was to become clear what would become of the unresolved question of closeness and distance. People were in danger of either losing their sense of self by remaining in their individual tribes or losing all connection with humanity and becoming mere isolated, independent, selfish individuals. That moment had arrived.
What had to happen at that moment? Something very specific. The human ego had to mature to develop within itself what can only be called independence and freedom, and to freely unfold from within itself a spiritual love that was no longer bound by blood ties. The ego stood at a crossroads. It had to become completely unbound and fully conscious of itself. Thus, with the exception of the Oriental peoples, the whole of humanity in the old world stood before a new birth of the ego, before such a birth of the ego through which this ego was to come to the love born out of the ego itself. The ego was to develop love out of freedom, and freedom out of love. And, in essence, only such a being is fully human. Only the person who develops such an ego is a true human being. For those who love only because of blood ties are driven to love and express at a higher level only what is also present at a lower level in the animal kingdom. Only at the moment we have just described did full humanization come into being. At that moment, the influence that made human beings human was to spread over the earth.
Remember what I have told you countless times: that human beings, according to their nature, consist of three members, the physical body, which they have in common with minerals, the etheric body, which they have in common with plants, and the astral body, in which, basically, love has also resided until now, which they have in common with animals. Through his fully developed ego, man is the crown of earthly creation. All other earthly beings have names that can be given to them from outside; they are objects. The ego has a name that only it can give itself. In the ego, the divinity speaks; in the ego, earthly conditions no longer speak; in the ego, the realm of the spirit speaks. The spirit from the heavens speaks when this ego has fully come into its own. One could say that until now there have been three kingdoms: the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, and a kingdom that has emerged from these but has not yet reached perfection, that has not yet received its entire super-earthly essence into itself. This realm, which consists of the fact that what is found nowhere else on earth, the spiritual world, the realms of heaven, are taken into an I-ness, this realm was called, according to the usage of the Bible, the realm or realms of heaven; in the Bible it is usually translated as “the kingdom of God.”
And the kingdom of heaven is nothing other than a paraphrase of the expression “human kingdom.” When we say mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms, we can add a fourth kingdom in the biblical sense: the kingdom of heaven. The human kingdom, we can say in the sense of the Bible, is the kingdom of heaven, so that those who at that time looked into the whole course of human development in the sense of mystery could say the following: Look back to past times; then humanity was led to humanity, then the kingdom of heaven was not yet on earth. Now the time has come when the kingdom of heaven is coming to earth. This was said by the forerunner of Christ Jesus and by Christ Jesus himself: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and in this way they characterized their time in its deepest essence. But it was precisely at this time that the birth of Christ Jesus had to take place. He was to bring to humanity those forces through which the I could develop those qualities. Thus, the entire development of humanity is divided into two parts: a pre-Christian part, in which the kingdom of heaven was not yet on earth, and a part in which the kingdom of heaven was on earth, the kingdom of man in its highest sense. The ancient Hebrew people were chosen to provide the physical bodies, the physical shells that had grown as a being to receive the bearer of this kingdom of heaven.
These are the secrets that emerge when one considers the events historically in a deeper sense, following the Gospel of Matthew. So that we can add to the two currents we have learned about, the two contributions to Christianity, Zarathustrianism and Buddhism, a third current, the ancient Hebrew current, the contribution of the ancient Hebrew people. We could now say the following: There were leaders such as Buddha and Zarathustra. They wanted to offer sacrifices to their religious currents. And a temple had to be built. The temple could only be built by the ancient Hebrew people. This people built the temple of Jesus' physical body. These first two currents were able to enter this temple. First, Zarathustra sacrificed himself by incarnating himself in this body; later, Buddha sacrificed himself by allowing his Nirmanakaya to flow into the other Jesus. In this way, these two currents flow together.
In order to give you something that is, in a certain sense, a complete train of thought, I have only been able to give you very brief, abstract sketches of these profound mysteries today. But in order to give you some complete thoughts, I have today characterized them schematically in general terms. We will continue this later in order to gain a picture of the mission of the ancient Hebrew people and of the very unique emergence of Christ Jesus from this people. Then we will see how, from history, from the temporal course of development, a being emerges that is of eternal validity, of imperishable duration. Thus it will gradually become apparent how that which will withstand eternity could develop out of a transitory world.