The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Gospels

[ 1 ] Today we will discuss a number of topics that have played a certain role in the current development of the spiritual movement within Germany. As you know—and as some of you have experienced firsthand—we have been discussing the various spiritual-scientific truths and insights in connection with the Gospels. What can be said in connection with the Gospel of John has been discussed in various places; what can be said in connection with the Gospel of Luke has also been discussed. However, not all of you have heard these things. Nor is the intention today to speak in a way that presupposes knowledge of what has been said previously; rather, the aim is simply to mention before you a few points from the broader scope of this spiritual-scientific field that must be of importance to everyone.

[ 2 ] It has often been mentioned here in Stuttgart that Christianity, and everything connected with it, has had a profound impact on the overall development of humanity, and that one cannot truly understand what is happening around us today—what the human soul is experiencing today—without taking into account the full significance of the Christ event within our Earth’s history. For every single human soul, it is of infinite importance to come to know the very significance of this event.

[ 3 ] Now, as you know, this event of Christ is described for humanity in four texts, the so-called four Gospels. You are familiar with all four of these texts and have certainly engaged with them in a variety of ways. These four documents—the Gospel according to Matthew, the Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel according to Luke, and the Gospel according to John—have fared in various ways throughout the course of human development since the founding of Christianity. The judgment and attitude of people toward these four documents have undergone great changes. If we first ask ourselves how these four documents appear to people today—even to today’s theologians—the answer is quite obvious. One says to oneself: First of all, we have the three documents of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They at least—so goes the general judgment today—agree on certain points. But quite different from these three documents is the fourth, the Gospel of John. - At first glance, the Gospel of John strikes people in such a way that they say to themselves: If one regards the first three Gospels as historical documents, as accounts of the life of Jesus Christ, then the fourth Gospel contradicts the first three so fundamentally that one could not regard this fourth as an account that corresponds to historical facts. - Thus, the view prevails that this fourth document is merely a text springing from the testimony of a man deeply devoted to the mission of Jesus Christ—a kind of hymn flowing from the heart to express, in an enthusiastic manner, what the author had to say. The other three Gospels are also called the canonical ones because they attempt to provide a kind of historical picture and because it is believed that they, in a certain way, reflect historical facts. However, if one insists on looking for contradictions that the external mind, bound to physical circumstances, seeks, then the first three Gospels truly present such contradictions as well. For are they not contradictions that the Gospel of Matthew tells of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, of a flight to Egypt, of the appearance of the Magi from the East, whereas the Gospel of Luke tells of a journey to Bethlehem, but completely omits what is told in the Gospel of Matthew about the Magi, that the flight to Egypt is omitted there, and so on? We shall not even go into the details of the three years of Christ Jesus’ ministry. We could find contradiction upon contradiction there.

[ 4 ] Now one might ask: How has the perception of the Gospels actually evolved over the course of Christian history? Has it always been the case that people have looked at the Gospels and seen contradictions in them above all else? — We need to be clear about how this evolution in the perception of the Gospels has taken place. It has not been long since people have had the Gospels at their fingertips as they do today. The Gospels have only been widely available to the general public for a short time. Before the invention of the printing press, the Gospels were essentially in the hands of only a few people—and certainly not the least educated, but rather those who had engaged with them in the most scholarly manner, who had made them a matter of their lives. And it is not the case that, the further back in time we go, the more and more people would have said: ‘There are contradictions’—but the exact opposite is true. The further back we go, the more it becomes clear that these contradictions were not perceived, that people had the four Gospels side by side and did not see the contradictions. The whole attitude people had toward the Gospels was quite different in the first Christian centuries. If we were to characterize this attitude, we would have to say that the people of the first Christian centuries were filled with an immense reverence for what is described in the Gospels. This entire atmosphere was permeated by a looking up to the great figure of Christ Jesus.

[ 5 ] How, then, were the Gospels perceived? How did people feel about the fact that the Gospel of Matthew tells a different story than, say, the Gospel of Luke? They felt much the same way as if today—I have already used this comparison in various lectures given here and there—as if someone were photographing a tree from one side. Such a photograph provides a view of the tree. If one were to show it to people and try to create an impression of the tree based on it, that impression would be highly one-sided. And one could hope to evoke a more accurate impression of the tree if one photographed it from four sides. Then one would show four images of the same tree. These would correspond very little with one another; they would be very different. Nevertheless, no one would have the impression that it could not be that these four photographs were images of a single tree. Everyone would say: Only by depicting it from four sides can I form a somewhat complete picture of the tree. - This is roughly how people in the early Christian centuries felt about the Gospels. They said: The entire great event is described from four different perspectives, and we get a complete picture of it when we truly take these four descriptions together and thereby form, so to speak, an overall view. We must, however, be clear about how these four descriptions actually relate to one another. It is indeed the great event described from four different perspectives. If one wants to understand what each individual perspective describes, one must first clarify the following:

[ 6 ] Before us stands a mighty Individuality, Christ Jesus—an Individuality about whom we know, from the descriptions we have already given here, that He descended from the spiritual world and appeared in Palestine at the beginning of our era. What came to Earth as an Individuality now appears as a great, all-encompassing ideal for every single human being. The individual human being strives upward, so to speak, by sensing in infinite distance above himself that perfection in an individuality expressed in Christ Jesus, and strives toward this ideal. Now, at first, the human being sees what he can regard as his striving in intellectual, moral, and other respects. But they see even more when they enter into what we call the spiritual science movement. There they see the development into the spiritual world. They know that human beings can grow beyond their ordinary selves, that they can grow to be able to see into the spiritual world, that they can develop their spiritual senses in order to live their way up into the spiritual world. Human beings recognize this. In the essay “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?”, you have described one aspect of this ascent, of entering the spiritual worlds, and in particular you have described what is called “splitting of the personality.” When a person develops spiritually so that they gradually grow into the spiritual worlds and become a seer themselves, something akin to a kind of split personality does indeed occur. Three forces are initially expressed in the personality: thinking, feeling, and willing. In the ordinary person, these three forces are, so to speak, united; they work together—thinking, feeling, and willing. You go out into the meadow, see a flower—that is, you have an image of the flower; you have thought. You like the flower; you call it beautiful—that is, you have felt. A feeling has joined with the thinking. You pick the flower and bring it home—that is, you have desired it. And this is how the entire outer life of a human being actually unfolds. They imagine, think, feel, and will, and the three intertwine. The image evokes the feeling, which in turn evokes the will or aversion and the like. When a human being now develops upward into the higher worlds, developing toward clairvoyance and participation in the spiritual worlds, a separation of these three forces takes place. In one who has reached a certain stage of clairvoyant consciousness, not every thought evokes a feeling; rather, the thought occurs in isolation, and the feeling can occur in isolation, and the will can occur in isolation. And precisely because the human being is then, so to speak, divided into three beings—while thinking, feeling, and willing are otherwise merely forces within the soul—the human being must become all the stronger in their individuality. They must not only balance these three forces, but also become master of three beings: a willing being, a feeling being, and a thinking being. He must be the leader of a host of these three beings. He must bring order; he must master them, otherwise what would be evil will occur: that the will drags him in one direction and the thinking in another, and he is then truly split and can no longer find his way. Therefore, the human being must grow stronger within, become powerful, so that he can be a ruler over the entities that have arisen from his soul forces. Thus, when the human being develops upward into the higher worlds, he splits, so to speak, into three distinct entities. When these entities come to meet us from above out of the spiritual worlds, and one sees them in their true nature—which can only be perceived through spiritual vision—they appear from the outset as sharply distinct: as thinking beings, willing beings, and feeling beings. This is what they are, what the human being has developed them into.

[ 7 ] This was particularly true of that great individual who came to us as the Christ. That is why those who first described the Christ said to themselves: One cannot describe the Christ by choosing just a single point of view; one must describe him first as a thinking, wisdom-filled being, then as a willing being, and then as a feeling being. One must describe him from the standpoint of wisdom, from the standpoint of the will, and from the standpoint of feeling. That is how one must describe him, people said. And for this they were particularly well-prepared by the entire education that was customary in ancient times. If a person was to be developed at all to ascend into the higher worlds—today something else is necessary for the first stages of attaining higher knowledge; in ancient times a different approach was taken—if someone was ripe to be led upward, so to speak, to be made a citizen of the spiritual worlds, then it was said: Well, he is ready to be led up into the higher worlds. But let us look at him more closely! Should we develop wisdom, or the powers of thought, or the will in him in particular?

[ 8 ] In the ancient mystery schools, not all powers were developed equally; rather, depending on the individual’s karma, the focus was placed on developing thinking into clairvoyance in one person, feeling into clairsentience in another, and willing into magical power in a third. Thus, in the ancient mystery schools, there were three classes of developed abilities: students in whom the ability to see through to the spiritual world with wisdom was particularly developed—these were the people in the mysteries whom one consulted when one wanted to know what the facts in the higher worlds were and how they were lawfully connected. If we wish to speak in a colloquial sense today, we might say that these were the experts in knowledge within the Mysteries. Then there was another class of initiates. In them, feeling was particularly developed. In order for this feeling to be developed in a special way, the training of knowledge and will was set aside in their case, and feeling was developed on its own. When feeling is particularly developed in a person, they thereby become what is almost entirely unknown today: they become a healer, a physician. For in ancient times, the physician exerted a spiritual influence emanating much more from the spheres of feeling and healed the receptive soul through the path of more highly developed feeling than is the case today. This was the second class of initiates. They had developed feeling to the highest willingness to sacrifice, to the surrender of all the powers they possessed. They simply divided the work among themselves. If one wanted to know what was wrong with someone, one went to those who had developed wisdom. They determined what was lacking and what needed to be done. Then came those who could not say what was wrong with the sick person, because their capacity for thinking was not developed; but they came and offered their powers, because they had developed the powers of feeling. These were also the people who had other functions, who, for instance, demonstrated their willingness to sacrifice in the event of misfortunes or similar occurrences. The third category of initiates were the magicians. These were those who had developed the sphere of the will. They were to take the external measures. The magicians had developed the powers of the will and were able to carry out what was required. Thus there were three kinds of initiates: initiates of thinking, initiates of feeling, and initiates of willing. And a fourth class or category consisted of those in whom an attempt was made, in a certain sense, to develop something from each of the remaining three: something of thinking, something of feeling, and something of willing. Consequently, they did not advance as far in any one area as the others; but in them it became evident, as in a certain initiation into the three spheres, how things are interconnected. Thus there were powerful initiates of wisdom, powerful initiates of the sacrificial service, powerful initiates of magic, and a fourth category that possessed, so to speak, something of each of the first three.

[ 9 ] When it came time to describe the Christ Jesus, so to speak, from all angles, there happened to be—this can be explained in more detail another time; today it can only be done in broad strokes—four people who described the faculties naturally united in him from their four respective perspectives. One of them, in particular, was initiated into the mysteries of thought. He described in Christ Jesus those qualities that such a person—an initiate of wisdom—could understand in particular. He left out the other aspects. Another was an initiate of feeling. He described Christ Jesus from the perspective of feeling, so to speak, as a physician, as a healer. A third was an initiate of magic. He described the powers that Christ could unfold to organize all of humanity. And a fourth was an initiate of the fourth class, in whom the powers worked together, working harmoniously. He described primarily the human work of Christ Jesus. He did not see the full power of wisdom, of the service of sacrifice, nor the mighty magical strength of Christ Jesus’ willpower; but he saw how the three powers of thinking, feeling, and willing came together harmoniously in Christ Jesus. He described the human being Christ Jesus.

[ 10 ] Thus, four initiates have described Christ Jesus. The one who described Christ Jesus as an initiate of wisdom was the author of the Gospel of John; the one who described him as an initiate of feeling was the author of the Gospel of Luke; the one who described him in terms of magical power was the writer of the Gospel of Mark; and the one who described the harmonious interplay of the three lower human members was the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. Thus, each one described in Christ Jesus that aspect in which he himself was initiated.

[ 11 ] In this way, we will come to understand that we can gain a complete picture of Jesus Christ because the four Gospels each describe what was particularly close to the hearts of the four individuals who wrote them. Anyone who has the necessary reverence for such a great individual as Christ was will say: It is precisely through this that I can gain a comprehensive picture, because the writers of the Gospels, each one, gave the best they were able to give. Therefore, however, it is also necessary that you not always take what is said in spiritual science in reference to the four Gospels—to the fourth, for example, or the third, or the second, or the first—as though you had the whole truth about Christ Jesus in every such chapter. The impression might easily have arisen from the various lectures that have been given here and there: Now Christ Jesus has been portrayed, and it would be interesting at most to portray him in connection with another Gospel. That is not the case. After all, one only gets a one-sided picture when one describes Christ Jesus according to a single Gospel. We must wait until, in the course of our spiritual movement, Christ Jesus has been described in connection with all four Gospels. Only then will you have what needs to be said about the entirety of the mysteries concerning him.

[ 12 ] Now it will be up to us to start from a certain one-sided account in order to, so to speak, piece together a picture of Christ Jesus—though in such a way that you must truly adhere to what has just been said. You must not leave this lecture today and say: “Well, now we have the truth in these matters”—but rather you must say to yourselves: “It has now been described from one point of view, and the other must be added and illuminated by what is said from other points of view.”

[ 13 ] In Christ Jesus we indeed find a convergence of all humanity’s earlier spiritual currents and, at the same time, a rebirth of those same currents. In Christ Jesus, all spiritual currents converge and are reborn—reborn to a higher degree. Now we could mention many such currents from pre-Christian times that we encounter in spiritual science through those reflections that tie in with the four Gospels—currents that we see converging in the Christ event; but for now we wish to draw attention to only three of them.

[ 14 ] First, there is a powerful spiritual current that has been active in Asia since time immemorial. This is the one we might call Zoroastrianism. A second spiritual current is the one that flourished in India and reached a certain high point with the appearance of Gautama Buddha, six hundred years before our era. A third spiritual current is the one that found expression in the ancient Hebrew people. Thus, in Christ Jesus, we have the convergence of the ancient Hebrew spiritual current, then what found its fulfillment in Gautama Buddha, and that which was associated with the name of Zarathustra. We could mention many more such spiritual currents, but that would make the matter too confusing.

[ 15 ] In a certain sense, the four Gospels reveal—if we truly understand them correctly—everything that actually took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. It is not the task of spiritual science to draw from the Gospels what they have to say. Nothing at all of what I say is derived from the Gospels. The only source for the spiritual researcher is what is called the Akashic Records, that which can be observed clairvoyantly. If all the Gospels were lost in some catastrophe, everything that is said in spiritual science about the Christ could still be stated. This is based on spiritual research. Only afterward is what this spiritual research yields compared with what is written in the Gospels. And this is precisely what gives rise to that objective reverence for the Gospels when one sees what, in turn, comes back to meet one from the Gospels. You must never lose sight of this point of view. For nothing is derived from the Gospels; therefore, what I am now telling you is not derived from the Gospels either. But we can later compare it with what is written in the Gospels, and we will find it to be in agreement.

[ 16 ] One of the spiritual currents that later flowed into Christianity is the one that reached its peak in the personality who incarnated in India as Gautama Buddha some six hundred years before our era. What kind of individuality is this? We can understand this individuality if we bear the following in mind: Everything that has gradually emerged in the course of human development is precisely a product that develops and gradually takes root. You would be mistaken if you believed that the capacities of modern human beings have always existed. Today, for example, there is such a thing as the voice of conscience. This has not always existed. We can almost touch with our hands the moment when conscience arose in the course of human development. If you go back to Aeschylus, you will find no description of conscience in his works. It is only in Euripides that a description of conscience is found. The Greek consciousness thus developed the concept of conscience only between these two. What people today call an inner voice has only recently developed. Before that, there was, we might say, a kind of clairvoyant consciousness within humanity. If a person did something they shouldn’t have done, an image would appear to them like a spirit of vengeance, and it would pursue them. This was what the Greeks called the Furies. They truly saw the consequences and the avenging spirits of their evil deeds all around them. This phenomenon, which existed outside the human being, drew itself into the human soul as the voice of conscience. And so the other human faculties also arose little by little, and it is merely a short-sightedness on the part of people who cannot see beyond the ends of their noses—as, so to speak, external science does in abundance—to believe that human beings have always been as they are today.

[ 17 ] Thus, people did not have what we might call a doctrine of compassion and love. We must imagine that the way compassion and love were taught in ancient times was quite different from today. Today, people can, so to speak, look within themselves. When this or that happens in the outside world, they can allow the feeling of compassion and love to well up within themselves, and they know that this is good. They can find the principles of love and compassion within themselves. This was not the case in earlier times; rather, in those days, people were taught how to behave purely through suggestion by those appointed to do so. People themselves had to be guided. There were individual leaders and guides of humanity who pointed out how people were to behave. It was dictated by the guides of humanity what was to be done as acts of love and compassion. And those who were thus the guides in the realm of love and compassion were in turn under higher guides, and all together under one guide whom one calls the Bodhisattva of Love and Compassion. He had the mission to bring down the teaching of compassion and love. But this Bodhisattva, who was the leader in matters of compassion and love, was not like an ordinary incarnated human being; rather, his entire being was not absorbed into the physical human form. He had, so to speak, a connecting bridge up to the spiritual world.

[ 18 ] The Bodhisattva of compassion and love lived only partially within the physical human being; the rest of his spiritual being extended upward into the spiritual worlds. From there he brought down the impulses he was to instill. If we were to describe this spiritually, we would have to say: There the clairvoyant saw the image of the human being in whom the Bodhisattva was partially incarnated, and behind this a powerful spiritual-astral figure that reached up into the spiritual worlds and was only partially in the physical body. - Such was this Bodhisattva. This Bodhisattva was the same one who was later reborn as the prince Gautama Buddha in India; for this Bodhisattva, this was, so to speak, an ascent to a higher dignity. Previously, he had, so to speak, allowed himself to be guided from above, had received the impulses from the spiritual world and passed them on. In this incarnation, however, six hundred years before our era, he was raised to the dignity of a Buddha in the twenty-ninth year of his life; that is to say, in this incarnation he experienced his entire individuality entering into the physical body. Whereas earlier, as a Bodhisattva, he had to remain partially outside in order to build a bridge, the progress toward Buddhahood was that he was fully incarnated in the body. Through this, he was able not only to receive the teaching of compassion and love through inspiration, but also to look within himself and receive this teaching as the voice of his own heart. This was the Buddha’s enlightenment in the twenty-ninth year of his life under the Bodhi tree. It was then that the teaching of compassion and love dawned upon him, independent of any connection to the spiritual world, as an inherent quality of the human soul—that he could conceive of the teaching of compassion and love, which he articulated in the Eightfold Path. And the sermon that followed is the great teaching of compassion and love, spoken for the first time from a human heart.

[ 19 ] This is how it must be with every human faculty. At a certain point in human evolution, a faculty must first find expression in a single individual; only then can it begin to develop gradually among human beings as a faculty in its own right. The teaching of compassion and love could only be experienced as something that human beings draw from within themselves after it had first been brought forth by a single individual. In Eastern philosophy, this is called “turning the wheel”—the wheel of Dharma, of compassion, and of love. This occurred through the full individuality of the Bodhisattva sinking into the prince Gautama Buddha. From that point on, there have been people who can find the teaching of compassion and love within themselves. And it will develop in such a way that more and more people will find within themselves the teaching of compassion and love, and approximately three thousand years after our era, a sufficient number of people will live on Earth who will develop in their own hearts what the Buddha discovered. Then the Buddha’s mission in this regard on Earth will be fulfilled. For at that time, when the Bodhisattva descended to become a Buddha, another took over the dignity of the Bodhisattva. Until then, what we today call the Buddha was a Bodhisattva. The rank next to that of the Bodhisattva is that of the Buddha. From Bodhisattva, the ascending being becomes a Buddha.

[ 20 ] Eastern philosophy expressed this by saying: When the Bodhisattva descended to Earth, he passed the Bodhisattva’s crown on to his successor. This successor still lives today as a Bodhisattva. He will not ascend to Buddhahood until three thousand years from the present time. This is the one whom Eastern philosophy calls the Maitreya Buddha. He is a Bodhisattva today and will be the Maitreya Buddha in three thousand years. He has a different mission than the Gautama Buddha, one connected to things that people today cannot yet discover on their own. This is a line of development. So that we can say: That Bodhisattva, who embodies the teaching of compassion and love, has indeed advanced to Buddhahood, and in doing so has given his mission a tremendous impetus. By being present in a human body with his entire being at that time, six hundred years before our era, he earned the right to no longer be incarnated in a physical body on Earth. In fact, that incarnation was the last incarnation of this Bodhisattva. He no longer needed to incarnate in a physical body, but only needed to descend to the etheric body. All subsequent incarnations of the Buddha are therefore not such that one can see him outwardly on the physical plane, but such that one can see him only through those powers that enable human beings to see the etheric body. Throughout the entire subsequent period, therefore, the Buddha incarnates only in an etheric body. What the Buddha had to bring to humanity, he now allowed to flow, six hundred years after his presence on Earth, into that which had been initiated by Christianity. He offered, so to speak, as a sacrifice to the emerging Christianity, what he had to bring; he allowed it to flow in like a spiritual tributary into the great main current. This is the current that reaches its culmination in the Buddha. This is the one current.

[ 21 ] Another came about in the following way. We can get a sense of it if we consider the development of humanity itself. As you all know, after the great Atlantean catastrophe, people did not possess the same abilities as they do today; rather, after that catastrophe, they still retained remnants of an ancient, twilight form of clairvoyance. Logical thinking developed only gradually. The culture we refer to as ancient Indian was entirely a culture arising from etheric clairvoyance. The Zoroastrian culture, too, was still one in which people worked with this ancient, twilight-like clairvoyance, and the Chaldean-Egyptian cultures were not yet cultures where people thought as they do today. Everything was still inspiration; it was not yet permeated by logic, but rather more or less inspired imagination, as manifested in Chaldean astrology and Hermetic wisdom. The human capacity for logical thinking was not yet developed in these cultures. Rather, it was reserved for a completely different current to develop precisely what one might call logical culture, or a culture of thought. The first post-Atlantean culture still arose entirely from etheric clairvoyance. The Zoroastrian culture was also such a culture, though no longer as pronounced. Likewise, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture was still based on inspiration. The thinking of that time was not yet permeated by logic; it was interwoven with imaginations that found expression in magnificent images in the astrology of the Chaldeans and in the Hermetic wisdom of Egypt.

[ 22 ] Post-Atlantic cultures emerged from two distinct movements. Aside from the group that headed west and settled in what is now the Americas, two streams of migrants, led by their chieftains, moved eastward—one heading north and the other south.

[ 23 ] The northern branch, parts of which remained in Europe, extended further into Asia. While new cultures were taking shape and unfolding there, the European population lived through the centuries as if in a state of waiting. Their energies were, as it were, held in reserve for what was to come. In their essential cultural elements, they were influenced by that great Initiate who had chosen this field as his domain all the way into the Siberian regions, and whom one calls the Initiate Skythianos. The leaders of the European primordial culture were inspired by him; this culture was not based on what came to humanity as thought, but on a receptivity to an element that stood midway between what one might call recitative-rhythmic speech and a kind of song, accompanied by a peculiar music that no longer exists today, but was based on an interplay of flute-like instruments. It was a peculiar element, the last remnants of which lived on in the bards and skalds. Everything recounted in the Greek myths of Apollo and Orpheus developed from this source. Alongside this, practical skills were developed in Europe through settlement, cultivation, and so on.

[ 24 ] The other great masses of people migrated to Asia under the leadership of the great Sun-initiate. The most advanced group, led by the Rishis, formed the first post-Atlantean civilization. Further on in the Near East, the oldest Zoroastrian culture developed; yet here we are not speaking of the historical Zoroaster. What he brought about is, in a certain sense, the opposite of ancient Indian culture. The latter was built entirely on etheric clairvoyance; Zarathustra turned his gaze toward the Sun. He beheld the Spirit of the Sun, the “great aura,” Ahura Mazda. It was Zarathustra who first expressed the distinctive characteristics of northern culture here. Everything that followed is built upon this.

[ 25 ] The other wave that had come over, the southern one, formed the basis for the Chaldean-Egyptian culture, which arose from the fusion of the two. This can be represented schematically: the Indian period signifies the development of the human etheric body; during the Persian period, the sensory body developed; the Egyptian-Chaldean culture gave rise to the sensory soul; it is essentially an inner culture, undergoing an inner process. And just as the sensory body and the sensory soul unite, so it is with all of humanity. This is particularly evident in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. The same will be the case with the consciousness soul and the spiritual self. This can only happen through the transition of the advancing culture into that region where spirituality had still been held back: this can only happen in Europe. There, the development toward the intellectual and conscious soul had still been held back and only developed after the Christ event. There, too, the fusion with the qualities of the spiritual self will be able to take place in the future. This can only happen through a spiritual current such as that of spiritual science. This is what the sixth epoch of our culture will bring.

[ 26 ] While the two currents described were still under the influence of the old, twilight-like clairvoyance, the third current—which merged with the others and prepared the way for the Christ event—was followed by a fourth cultural current that could be called a logical-rational one. To ensure we understand each other perfectly, you must bear in mind that all clairvoyance arises because the etheric body—specifically the etheric body of the brain—functions independently in a certain way. Where the etheric body of the brain and the physical instrument of logical thinking are tightly bound together, clairvoyance cannot arise. Only when the etheric body retains something in order to be independent can clairvoyance arise. When the etheric body of the brain is fully linked to the physical brain, it works out the brain in the most subtle way; but it also engages in the elaboration of the physical brain, and nothing remains to develop clairvoyance as well. But it was necessary that precisely that ability should find its way into humanity which is bound up with cerebral thinking, with the synthesizing of world phenomena through the brain. For this, something had to occur within humanity that can be characterized by saying it had to be selected from humanity precisely—well, let us take an individual in whom, so to speak, what was called the old clairvoyance was least present, whereas the physical instrument of the brain was developed, chiseled out, and refined to the highest degree. This individual was able to survey the phenomena of the outer physical world in terms of measure, number, order, and harmony, seeking unity in the outwardly spread-out phenomena. While, then, all members of earlier cultures knew something of the spiritual world, so to speak, through inner inspiration, this individual had to direct their gaze outward into the realm of phenomena; they had to combine, weigh things logically, and say to themselves: Out there are the phenomena; everything arranges itself into a harmony when one surveys it all in a great picture of unity. - That which appeared there as unity appeared as unity in the external world, as the God behind the phenomena of the physical plane. This was a difference from other conceptions of God. The other contemplators of God said to themselves: Our conception of God arises from within. This individual, however, directed his gaze everywhere, arranged the phenomena together, looked upon the various realms of nature, brought them under a unity; in short, he was the great organizer of worldly phenomena according to measure and number, who was chosen from among all humanity. This individuality, chosen from all of humanity to be the first to survey the outer physical world and find the unity within it, was Abraham. Abraham, or Abram, was the one who was, so to speak, chosen by the spiritual-divine powers to receive this special mission: to hand down to humanity the forces bound to the measure and number of outer phenomena. He emerged from the Chaldean culture. The Chaldean culture itself had recognized its astrology through clairvoyance. Abraham, the forefather of arithmetic, emerged to discover all this through combination, by means of the physical brain having undergone a very special refinement here. Through this, a very special mission was entrusted to him.

[ 27 ] Now we must consider: How the mission was to unfold was not to remain with him alone, but was to become the common heritage of humanity. But since thought was bound to the physical brain, how could it become a common heritage? It could only become a common heritage by being truly transmitted through physical heredity. That is to say, a people had to emerge from this very individuality, in whom this particular characteristic would be inherited, as long as it was to enter humanity as a mission. A people had to emerge from it. A people therefore had to be established, not merely a culture where something had been taught: what one has received clairvoyantly, one can teach. What humanity was now to receive had to be transmitted to posterity through physical inheritance so that it could take root in every detail. What was to take root? What was to take root was the ability to find, through human reasoning, that order which was first brought into humanity by Abraham. When one looks up at the order of the stars, one can find that order through reasoning. The thoughts of the gods were reflected upon by the sages of Chaldean astrology. Now the task was to find this particular transition to combining, to the logical grasping of phenomena, in the external world. A quality therefore had to be inherited in the physical human body that, through the work of thinking, would itself yield what is spread out as order in the space of the world. This is beautifully expressed when the one who entrusts this mission to Abraham says: “Your descendants shall be arranged according to the order, according to the number of the stars”—which the Bible nonsensically translates as: “Your descendants shall be like the sand of the sea.” For it is said that there shall be an arrangement in Abraham’s descendants; the descendants shall be structured in such a way that they reflect the stars in the heavens. This is also expressed in the twelve sons of Jacob. They are a reflection of the twelve constellations. Here the measurements come into play that are prefigured in the heavens. In the generational line, there shall be a reflection of the number in the heavens. Just as the number is inscribed in the heavens, so shall the order of the number be inscribed in the generational line. This is the profound wisdom contained in these words, which have been foolishly translated as: “Your descendants shall be like the sand of the sea.”

[ 28 ] So we see, then, the meaning of this entire mission of Abraham. But beyond that, this entire mission also expresses, in a wonderfully symbolic way, that which is meant to be a reflection of the mysteries of the world. First, let us ask ourselves the following: What is to be sacrificed here, so to speak, is that which is the old, twilight-like clairvoyance. Everything that has been established in humanity since the earliest times is to be sacrificed. This is to be the innermost attitude in this entire mission: that everything is received as a gift from outside. What is to come into being is to come into being through physical offspring. Through them, this mission is to enter the world. Abraham must receive this himself as a gift from God. This happens because he is first called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac, and then prevented from doing so. What does he actually receive there from the hand of God? There he receives his entire mission. For if he had truly sacrificed Isaac, he would have sacrificed his entire mission. He regains his people by regaining Isaac. He receives that which he is actually meant to give to the world; he receives it as a gift of the divine world order in Isaac. Thus, the whole of what follows Abraham is a gift from God Himself. The last of the clairvoyant gifts that remained—you will come to understand later how the individual clairvoyant gifts manifest themselves; each one can be related to one of the constellations—the last of the clairvoyant gifts, which was voluntarily sacrificed, is linked to the constellation of Aries. That is why we see Aries in the sacrifice of Isaac. This is a symbolic expression of the sacrifice of the last clairvoyant gift in exchange for the gift of being able to judge external worldly phenomena by number and measure. This is Abraham’s mission.

[ 29 ] And how does this mission continue? The final gift of clairvoyance is sacrificed; it must be cast out of this mission, and even if it still manifests as an inheritance, it is, so to speak, not tolerated within the current line of succession. Joseph experiences a relapse. He has his dreams; he possesses the old gift of clairvoyance. His brothers cast him out. Here we see how strictly this entire mission was organized: Joseph is cast out. He journeys to Egypt to establish precisely the connection that was now necessary—the connection with the other wing of our entire cultural development, with Egyptian culture. Joseph had united within himself that which was of a general nature within this mission and, at the same time, remnants of the old clairvoyance. He brought about a complete upheaval in Egypt by correcting the declining Egyptian culture in accordance with his clairvoyant gift. He placed his gift at the service of external institutions. This is what underlies Joseph’s cultural mission in Egypt.

[ 30 ] And now we witness a peculiar spectacle. Now we see how those who, as missionaries, were concerned with external thought in terms of measure and number, are no longer following the old path; just as through Joseph they sought the external context, so they sought in Egypt, as a reflection, that which they could not produce from within themselves. So they go there, and there they take it in—the descendants of Abraham take in what they need in Egypt. That is why it can come to them. So they go there. What is now necessary for the further organization of this mission—since it cannot be produced from within—is given from the outside through the Egyptian initiation. Moses brings this from the outside and connects Egyptian culture with this particular mission of Abraham. And now we see how this propagates from generation to generation: what constitutes human apprehension of the external world, what constitutes the recognition of the external world in terms of measure, weight, and number. A new element has entered. This is transmitted through blood kinship and can only propagate in this way, for it is bound to that which must be inherited. This is the second of the currents.

[ 31 ] The third of these currents is the one that follows in the footsteps of Zarathustra; it is what found expression in ancient Persian culture and spread onward to the Near East, as we have already learned in the various lectures. It is these three currents that converge in Christ Jesus. The individuality that is Christ Jesus had to engage with all three currents. They must unite within him. How does this happen? It happens in the following complex way. First of all, we must bear in mind that the event intended to flow into the general world current took place in India six hundred years before our era. At about the same time, something also took place within the Babylonian-Chaldean culture through the reappearance of Zarathustra under the name Zarathos or Nazarathos in ancient Chaldea. There he lived and worked as a great teacher precisely at the time when some of the chosen teachers and leaders of the ancient Hebrew people were led into Babylonian captivity, for this also includes the time when the Jews were led into captivity. There you see how the first contact took place at that time between the Hebrew people and Zarathos, and how the Hebrew people, through their members, stood under the personal influence of the reborn Zarathustra or Zoroaster. There the events unfolded as described in the Bible. The following occurred. At the beginning of our era, there were two sets of parents, both named Joseph and Mary. One set lived in Nazareth, the other in Bethlehem. The husband of one set descended from the Solomonic line of the House of David—that was the husband of the Bethlehemite couple. The other couple in Nazareth descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David. Solomon and Nathan are the two sons of David. - Both sets of parents had a son. The Nazareth couple gave birth to the Nazareth boy Jesus, whom the Gospel of Luke describes, and the Bethlehem couple gave birth to the Bethlehem boy Jesus, whom the Gospel of Matthew describes. So we have two Jesus boys at the beginning of our calendar.

[ 32 ] Let us trace the origins of the infant Jesus of Bethlehem! How, so to speak, did he come into being as a physical child? As a physical child, we see him descending from the physical lineage that the author of the Gospel of Matthew so beautifully traces back to Abraham. We would have to trace the journey from Ur in Chaldea over to the land of Canaan, then over to Egypt, and back again to Canaan. That would roughly correspond to the journey of the Israelite people from Chaldea over to Palestine, across to Egypt, and back again. These were the ancestors of the infant Jesus of Bethlehem. And because he carried the blood of these ancestors within him, he underwent this journey, so to speak. That individuality which now sought to incarnate itself in this Jesus child of Bethlehem swiftly retraced the same path, albeit in abbreviated form. That was the very individuality that had worked as Zarathustra in ancient Chaldea. Thus, at the moment the Bethlehemite child Jesus was born, a spiritual individuality came into being that first spiritually retraced Abraham’s exact path from Chaldea to Canaan. Here it was born into the Bethlehemite child Jesus. Then it had to briefly follow the journey to Egypt and back again later, until it settled in Nazareth. There you have the individuality that, so to speak, spiritually underwent the entire journey of the people of Israel. You can trace this journey, which you have described in the Bible, and you will find that it is true. The Bible describes it better than any external document. What can be found in the Akashic Records for the clairvoyant eye is confirmed by the Bible: the journey the Israelite people undertook from Chaldea to Canaan, across to Egypt, and back. And the parallels are marvelous throughout. Who leads the Jews to Egypt? Joseph’s dreams lead them there. Who leads the Bethlehemite boy Jesus to Egypt? The dreams of another Joseph, his father. These parallels extend down to these details. It is, once again, a special clairvoyant gift that has remained, which establishes the connection.

[ 33 ] Thus, the individuality of Zarathustra is born into these Bethlehemite Jesus-children after they have received the element that entered humanity through Abraham by inheritance. And those who were connected to Zarathustra in the Chaldean mystery schools are now following the path. In the spiritual world, their star goes before them: Zoroaster himself, who is going to be born in Bethlehem. You can follow them, the three Magi; they appear in the Bible. They know him who lives there in the Bethlehem child Jesus.

[ 34 ] This is one of the Jesus children, the one from Bethlehem. In the other Jesus child—who was born in Bethlehem only because of a journey—something quite different is at work; something that reveals itself simply in the fact that this Jesus child was different in every way from the one from Bethlehem. From the very beginning, the Bethlehemite Jesus-child revealed himself to be a person of extraordinary talent, far surpassing the ordinary human measure, for he possessed a powerful individuality within him. He was gifted in everything that humanity had hitherto acquired in terms of cultural achievements. He showed himself to be extraordinarily gifted in everything that could be learned from his surroundings. The Nazarene Jesus child was not at all gifted for the external aspects of culture. He possessed only a deeply, deeply soulful inner life. It was precisely this quality of soulfulness that was developed within him. He was, however, not gifted to learn what was available externally in terms of cultural resources. He had no inclination for that. He possessed something of which people can have no conception whatsoever, regarding the distinction between good and evil. But what had developed on earth in terms of culture was foreign to him. It was foreign to him for the reason that something had been born within him that had not undergone the entire course of human development.

[ 35 ] We can understand this if we consider the following. In the ancient Lemurian era, what we call the Luciferic influence took hold within humanity. The Luciferic forces crept into the human astral body. As a result, humanity became what it is today. At that time, the guiding forces had to hold back a portion of the human etheric body so that it would not be infected by everything the astral body—which was under the Luciferic influence—could impart to it. A part of the etheric body was thus withdrawn from the influence of the astral body, in that the human being retained influence over his etheric body only insofar as he is a willing and feeling being, but not in regard to anything intellectual. This was, so to speak, held back and guided down from the spiritual-divine world above. Therefore, from the beginning of their existence on Earth, human beings have, so to speak, their individual desires and personal feelings, and they could not have their own personal thoughts, nor the expression of personal thoughts, which is language. Thinking was such that it was guided by a continuous spirituality in the same way for everyone. Thus, everyone thinks alike. But language, too, was at least guided by the folk gods, so that not every human being has their own language. That which is expressed in the spirit of language was, in relation to the etheric body, removed from the arbitrariness of the individual personality; it was withheld. What was withheld back then in the Lemurian epoch is recounted in the myth of Paradise: Man partook of the Tree of Knowledge, but not of the Tree of Life; he gained his own free will with regard to volition; but what was not given to man back then was now transmitted through mysterious processes to this Jesus-child, to the Nazarene Jesus-child, whose etheric body it was. There was that which had been withheld from humanity in the beginning, and this prevented the Nazarene boy Jesus from taking an interest in what humanity had developed in terms of culture. He possessed something far more primordial, reminiscent of the time when humanity had not yet fallen into the sin of the individual’s arbitrariness. The writer of the Gospel of Luke expresses this by tracing the genealogy back to Adam. Thus, in the Nazarene Jesus-child, something appears that had sunk into Adam, something that was withdrawn from the Luciferic influence. What humanity was before this Luciferic influence was present in this Nazarene Jesus-child.

[ 36 ] These two young Jesus figures lived side by side. When they were both twelve years old, the following happened. Then the Zarathustra within the Bethlehemite Jesus boy decided to cross over with his individuality into the Nazarene Jesus boy. This is hinted at in the Bible in the event known as the loss of the twelve-year-old Jesus, where his parents are astonished to find him again. He was completely different from what he had been before, the Nazarene Jesus boy. Now, all of a sudden, he took an interest in external culture, because Zarathustra’s individuality was within him. This happened at that very moment described in the Bible regarding the loss of the twelve-year-old Jesus. Something else had also happened. At the birth of the Nazarene Jesus boy, that which we might call the later incarnation of the Buddha descended into the astral body. The Buddha, in his etheric body at the time of his reincarnation, was now connected from birth with this Nazarene boy Jesus, so that in the aura of the Nazarene boy Jesus, in the astral body, we have the Buddha. This is profoundly hinted at in the Gospel of Luke. It is told in the Indian legend that there was a remarkable sage at the time when the prince Gautama Buddha was born, who was to become the Buddha. There lived Asita. He had learned, through his clairvoyant abilities, that the Bodhisattva had now been born. He looked at the boy in the royal palace and was filled with enthusiasm. He began to weep. “Why are you weeping?” the king asked him. “O King, no misfortune is imminent; on the contrary: the one who has been born there is the Bodhisattva and will become the Buddha. I weep because, as an old man, I will no longer be able to witness this Buddha.” Then Asita dies. The Bodhisattva becomes the Buddha. The Buddha descends and unites with the aura of the Nazarene boy Jesus to contribute his small part to the great event in Palestine. At the same time, through a karmic connection, the old Asita is reborn. He becomes the old Simeon. And he now sees the Buddha, who had become one from a Bodhisattva. What he had not been able to see back then in India, six hundred years before our era—the becoming of the Buddha—he now saw it, as the Buddha hovered in the aura of the Nazarene Jesus child whom he held in his arms, and now he spoke these beautiful words: “Now, Lord, you let your servant depart in peace, for I have seen my Master,” the Buddha in the aura of the boy Jesus.

[ 37 ] Thus we see how the three currents converge: the current of Abraham flowing down through the blood; the Zarathustra current through the individuality of the Bethlehemite Jesus-child; and the third current through the Buddha descending into his etheric body, or Nirmanakaya, and being seen by the shepherds. Thus we see these three currents converging. And how these continue to live on within Christianity, how the one who then lives in the Nazarene Jesus child endowed with the individuality of Zarathustra carries these currents forward, can only be described another time.

[ 38 ] It should also be noted that, after the individuality of Zarathustra had passed into the personality, into the body of the Nazarene boy Jesus, the Bethlehem boy Jesus gradually wasted away and soon died.

[ 39 ] The important thing is that you understand how this guidance of the Zarathustra individuality took place within the child Jesus. You know that human development proceeds in such a way that from birth to the age of seven the physical body develops, from the seventh to the fourteenth year the etheric body develops—its specific unfolding—and that the astral body is then born. A distinct ego, an individuality such as was born in human beings during the Lemurian epoch, was entirely absent in the Nazarene Jesus child. Had he continued to develop without Zarathustra having passed over, no ego could have been born. He possessed what had been brought together as the three sacred members, as they were before the Fall: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body, and it was only then that he received the gift of the I through Zarathustra. All of this came together in a wondrous way. In the Gospels, we have reflected the facts that can be found in the Akashic Records.

[ 40 ] I have been able to sketch only briefly certain aspects of the convergence of these great, powerful spiritual currents—those of the Buddha, Zarathustra, and the ancient Hebrew tradition—in the Near East, where, at the beginning of our era, Christianity gave new life to these three currents. These are just a few points that we can continue to explore another time.