The Rudolf Steiner Archive

2. The Gospels, Buddha, and the Two Jesus Boys

[ 1 ] Last time, I summarized here the content of the lecture series in Basel, which focused on the Gospel of Luke. In doing so, we pointed out a question that someone might ask: “Yes, now that so much has been said regarding the Gospel of John and, following that, about the image of Christ Jesus, is it possible that there is also something to be said with regard to the other Gospels—that one might, in a certain sense, arrive at a similar understanding as when one has allowed the deepest of them all, the Gospel of John, to take effect upon oneself?”

[ 2 ] If that were the case, then an interpretation of the other three Gospels would not be in keeping with spiritual research. For what we seek within spiritual research is not to be taken from some document; it is not to come to us as something handed down, but as something that can be investigated using the methods of spiritual research.

[ 3 ] The scholar of the humanities sets out to explore the nature of the events in Palestine without relying on any historical documents. He conducts his research without taking any documents into account. He then attempts to demonstrate how the same truths and accounts emerge from the documents.

[ 4 ] In the case of the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John, we have chosen to extract from the vast expanse of the Akashic Records those elements that can be found in the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of John. By applying the research of spiritual scientists to these Gospels in this way, one comes to truly understand them in a certain sense. I have shown that the Gospel of Luke offers an opportunity to discuss something different than the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John begins with the personality of Jesus of Nazareth at the time when he was thirty years old. There we encounter in him the high solar being, the Christ being. We are dealing here with the last three years of the life of Christ Jesus.

[ 5 ] The Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, allows us to gain insight into those significant events that made it possible for this great being, the Christ, to flow into the personality of Jesus of Nazareth; it reveals the convergence of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism, and we have seen how these two powerful spiritual currents meet and unite precisely in Jesus of Nazareth. He appeared before us for the last time as a human personality who was born as a child with very special inner dispositions, but initially not with those dispositions that would have led human beings specifically to an understanding of the outer, present physical world. Above this personality, who appeared to us as a child in the Nathanic Jesus-child, the actual Jesus of Nazareth, we see radiating what we called the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, what we see as the aura of this child. It is the form that the Buddha assumed after his last incarnation, in which he became the Buddha. We could emphasize that what we call our Western esoteric teaching fully justifies what is contained in the Eastern scriptures: that the Individuality, prior to the Buddha’s incarnation in the 6th century B.C., was a Bodhisattva.

[ 6 ] Such a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha in a very specific incarnation. By then, that individuality had reached such a stage of development that it no longer needed to be incarnated in a physical body on Earth. It is a great achievement for an individuality to no longer need to be incarnated. Whether this is possible, however, depends not only on the level of development of an individuality, but also on the nature of that individuality. After this incarnation, the Bodhisattva-Buddha no longer had to undergo any further earthly, physical incarnations. He no longer incarnated in an earthly, physical body, but only in what we call the etheric or life body, the lowest physical entity. From then on, such an individuality incarnated in this form. This Buddha no longer descended into a physical incarnation, but only into one in the etheric body.

[ 7 ] Such an etheric body, in which an individuality has developed, does not—when seen—resemble any other body that exists on Earth as a physical body. What we see as the physical body of an individuality that descends to incarnate in a physical body is a closed unity. There is no break anywhere. But such an etheric body, in which an individuality like the Buddha incarnates, is not a closed spatial unity. It is a multiplicity of unconnected parts. Let us recall the so-called splitting of the personality that occurs as a human being develops ever higher. This process is described in *How to Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds*. What is connected as a whole in the ordinary human being—the forces we call thinking, feeling, and willing—then stands, so to speak, each on its own. The human being will eventually become master of these; he will subsequently be a triad, one might even say a multiplicity, as is explained in my *Outline of Esoteric Science*.

[ 8 ] In such a case, as with the Buddha’s incarnation in later times, we have an etheric body composed of disjointed entities. In ordinary people, it is only the principle of the physical body that holds the etheric body together.

[ 9 ] When such a Bodhisattva-Buddha reappears in an etheric body, he appears—when he becomes visible—as a multitude, as a host of beings. The writer of the Gospel of Luke speaks of this host of beings when he refers to the angels who appeared to the shepherds in the fields. This etheric body, which is called the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, hovered over that Nazarene child Jesus. It is this body that becomes the inspirer, infusing all that the Buddha was into Christianity in this way. Thus we see how Buddhism flows into Christianity here. One must conceive of this in very concrete terms, not merely in the abstract. Anyone who wants to understand how this actually takes place must be able to point to the concrete event where the Buddha, having advanced to that next stage, integrates himself into Christianity. This is described in the Gospel of Luke, in the host of angels that is the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha.

[ 10 ] We then described how there is a second Jesus child, whom we might call the Bethlehem Jesus child, and explained how he is nothing other than Zarathustra reincarnated. He is an extraordinarily precocious child. In that child, Zarathustra is reincarnated. This is expressed in the Gospel of Matthew. For the Gospel of Matthew is intended to depict the individuality that was particularly understandable to the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, the one who brought the current of Zarathustrianism into Christianity. That is why it is also described that this boy descended from the Solomonic-royal line of the House of David, whereas the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David, the priestly line.

[ 11 ] If we wish to understand Christianity in all its profound significance, we must realize that the most important currents from the world had to converge. We see that the Davidic royal line splits into a Solomonic and a Nathanic line. In the Solomonic line, the royal qualities are perpetuated; in the Nathanic line, the priestly qualities. The royal qualities come to the fore especially in the first two periods of human life; these are the qualities that, above all, lead, so to speak, to an understanding mastery of world affairs, to everything that brings the human being into harmony with world affairs. This can only happen if the forces of the physical and etheric bodies are properly developed. Since Zarathustra had perfected these qualities primarily in an inner way, he now had to make use, especially up to the age of twelve, of all the predispositions that emerged in the physical and etheric bodies. Such predispositions could be given to him in particular through the qualities inherited in the Solomonic house. For the task he had, however, he also needed the great aptitudes of the ego-bearer, the great aptitudes of the astral body. These could only be given to him by a lineage that had passed down precisely these aptitudes through generations. Had Zarathustra remained until the age of thirty in the body where the etheric body and the physical body were particularly developed, he would not have been able to deepen his being to such an extent. That is why, at the age of twelve, he passed over into the Nazarene Jesus, so that from the age of twelve onward, the individuality of Zarathustra was received into the very same child in whom the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha dwelt. Thus these two currents merged in this Nazarene Jesus at the age of twelve.

[ 12 ] A third current—the ancient Hebrew current—should be added to this. It was only through this convergence that the individuality capable of embracing Christ within itself could emerge.

[ 13 ] We now ask ourselves: How did the ancient Hebrew spiritual current influence this? Let us see how we are to understand the very essence of the ancient Hebrew spiritual current. Let us also consider what we have regarded as the essence of the Buddha’s development. What happened as a result of the Bodhisattva becoming a Buddha?

[ 14 ] This individuality, embodied in the Bodhisattva-Buddha, had the task of passing down from one epoch to the next what might be called the teaching of compassion and love. If we wish to understand this, we must realize that human beings were once in a completely different state of consciousness. We must not be short-sighted like modern science, which believes that the same abilities have always existed, developing gradually from primitive beginnings, and that human beings were previously at the level of animality. That is simply not how it was. What we today call human thinking, feeling, and willing was not always there. The further back we go in the development of humanity, the more this present state of consciousness becomes a dreamlike, twilight clairvoyance. That is why everything that was to be taught in ancient times had to be presented differently than it is today. Today one can articulate certain moral principles; people then understand them. When people hear such principles today, they can say: Certainly, my own reason tells me that. — But for this to be possible, reason and conscience first had to be developed. It can be clearly demonstrated from external history that conscience had to have a beginning. Aeschylus does not yet speak of it. This particular power of the soul only emerged at a specific time; before that, it did not exist.

[ 15 ] Before humans had a conscience, before logical thinking existed, if one had appealed to one’s conscience or to one’s reasoning, it would have been as if one were speaking to a stone or a plant.

[ 16 ] At that time, the soul needed strength and inspiration, and these had to be instilled in it. For example, what pertains to love was instilled in a suggestive manner by the individuality known as the Bodhisattva, when this individuality—the Bodhisattva—was present as the Buddha. The time had come when human beings could gradually grasp the teaching of compassion and love—the teaching of the so-called Eightfold Path—from within themselves. This teaching, which previously had to be handed down to them from above, could only be given to them as a teaching once the Buddha was present. That is why the Bodhisattva had to become the Buddha.

[ 17 ] Everything that takes place in human evolution must occur in its specific place and among a specific people, from whom a number of individuals are chosen who have an understanding of the teaching. Perhaps one will find a contradiction between this and what has been said previously, because it was previously stated that Christ’s mission was to spread love. But when something like this is said, it is necessary to listen very carefully. It was part of the Buddha’s mission to bring the teaching of compassion and love; but Christ is the power of love. He brought love itself. It is one thing to bring the teaching of something, and quite another to bring the thing itself. It was precisely this that made it possible for the power of love to flow down and manifest itself through this high solar being on Earth, that this teaching was brought by the Buddha. But again, it was necessary for this power of love to manifest itself on Earth within a people who had undergone a different development than the one in which the Buddha lived.

[ 18 ] How does what the Buddha brought to the world differ from what was brought by the individuality of Moses? What the Buddha brought is rightly called the great law, Dharma. The Buddha brought the law in a specific form so that the soul could recognize it in that form, so that people could find it within their own souls. Moses brought a law in a completely different way; he brought it as a commandment. It could not be regarded by the people to whom he brought it as a law rooted in the soul itself, but rather as a divine law given from on high. The Buddha said: “You will find within the deepest power of the soul itself the law that I tell you.”—But Moses said: “There is the law of the God who is to come.”

[ 19 ] A law had to be given to a people, so to speak, on the assumption that this people was at a less advanced stage than another. It had not yet developed certain capacities. All development is based on the fact that things do not proceed in a straight line.

[ 20 ] Development is usually understood to mean that what comes later always arises from what came before. But that is not how development actually takes place. Development arises from entirely different conditions. When we observe a plant as it grows, we first see the seed, then the stem growing upward, and how it then produces leaf after leaf and finally the flower. Now there comes a point where what comes later no longer simply develops gradually from what came before, but fertilization takes place. Something else must flow in—a pollen grain from another plant. In spiritual life in particular, the most diverse circumstances and currents must now converge. In Palestine, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and then a completely different current had to unite. Under certain conditions, this current could bring in younger life forces. For a long, long time, the commandments of Yahweh had been at work within this people. Had this people also been at a stage where Buddha, six hundred years before Christ, could have appealed to the very souls of these people, then the people would not have possessed those youthful forces later on. Therefore, they had to receive commandments from their lawgiver that did not appeal to their own souls. This people in the Near East had to be held back at an earlier stage.

[ 21 ] We can apply a similar line of reasoning hypothetically to the life of an individual. Imagine someone trying to artificially induce a person to develop particularly creative abilities at a certain age. But one should certainly not try this! Then a child would have to be raised in a completely different way than is usually the case. For if I try to teach a child at the age of seven what school teaches today, I have thereby rendered the soul incapable of developing certain powers later on. I therefore want to wait until the age of ten. Then this child will approach with entirely different powers. Then it will have retained something of youthful vitality. Then powers will emerge that are creative powers, which otherwise might have been stifled.

[ 22 ] You can see how this was carried out in the Near East. The Hebrew people were held back. They were not yet ready to embrace the Buddha’s teachings of compassion and love. These were given to them as commandments. They had not received the Buddha’s call to develop the teachings of compassion and love from within themselves. Only at a point in Earth’s evolution where humanity had advanced the most could the Bodhisattva-Buddha bring this teaching. When entirely different forces had then developed, this current was united with the other at a different point.

[ 23 ] Where, then, are we to look for that which flows down through the generations of a people? What does it depend on? How does a human being absorb that which pertains to the entire people? From the first to the seventh year, a human being is still enveloped in an etheric sheath, which they then shed. Then they are still surrounded by the astral sheath, which they shed upon reaching sexual maturity. Only then is the astral body born. When the astral body is born in a person between the ages of twelve and fifteen, it is the vessel containing all the forces that the individual shares with the national character. This astral sheath, which the individual now sheds, contains all the qualities that the individual could have held within until then. This sheath is what makes a person belong to a particular national character. What happens to this sheath when it is shed? This sheath that is shed contains everything that the person shares with their national character. It then unites with all the sheaths that the ancestors have also shed. We have, as it were, a chain.

[ 24 ] Until the age of fourteen, a person carries this within them; they are linked by a chain that extends back to their ancestors. How far back does this chain go? It goes back to the forty-second generation—the sixth generation of the seventh! This is how a person is connected to their ancestors. This was known in ancient times. It is also known today within spiritual science. Because a person is connected to their ancestors in this way, the ancient Egyptians had people appear before forty-two judges of the dead after death in their Book of the Dead.

[ 25 ] If a particular human trait is to emerge so that it becomes part of the people, then these ancestors must be such that all these individual members embody those specific traits of the people. If Zarathustra were to incarnate, it would have to be in a vessel that possessed the essential traits of his people.

[ 26 ] That is why Matthew has Zarathustra born into the forty-second generation after Abraham, a line that possessed all the characteristics of the people. In this way, these influences found their way into the third current.