The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] We have seen how complex the personality must have been that was to channel all earlier spiritual currents into the world through a higher current. Two children were called: the Solomonic and the Nathanic [Jesus child]. We have seen how, in the twelfth year, that remarkable event occurred in which the Zarathustra-I passed over into the body of the Nathanic boy. Thus we have before us a Jesus-child who carries within himself the I of Zoroaster [and who] holds in his astral body all that the Buddha has become since his last incarnation, and [who] in the etheric body [bears] that pure etheric body which was preserved from the time before the Luciferic influences asserted themselves, influences that led humanity ever deeper and deeper down into the earthly world.

[ 2 ] [This may raise the] question: Why was it necessary for two infant Jesuses to be born? Wouldn’t one have been enough? Since he was an essence of everything that needed to be developed within the Hebrew people? Yet it was necessary. In order for all the qualities that Christ Jesus needed to emerge in the body, the most diverse stages of human development had to be undergone. The Solomonic boy possessed the finest physical attributes that could be developed.

[ 3 ] From physical birth until the age of seven, a person develops the best qualities of the physical body; until the age of fourteen, those of the etheric body; and then, until about the age of twenty-one, those of the astral body. Only then do the best qualities of the I begin to develop. What we have in the physical [body] and in the etheric body—with the exception of that essence which is taken with us into the Devachanic world after death—the human being inherits from his ancestors. Thus, the Solomonic boy could inherit only what could grow within the physical [body] and the etheric body. Until the age of twelve, the I of Zarathustra was contained within those outer members that can be acquired entirely through heredity. From the age of twelve onward, the development of the astral body would have begun. But this is not inherited; it is attached to the individuality while still in the spiritual world. In order for the I of Zarathustra to develop in the most perfect astral body, he had to receive precisely the most perfect one. For this, the experiences of the Buddha—who came from the spiritual culture of India, which had turned away from the earthly—were necessary. Had the I of Zarathustra, however, incarnated directly in the child of Nathan, it would not have received the perfect physical and etheric bodies it needed—bodies that had to encompass not only the inner but also the entire outer world, as could only occur in the royal, not the priestly, line.

[ 4 ] Once the Zarathustra-I had absorbed everything that can be experienced with such perfect instruments, it was able to experience the other aspects that arise from the perfect etheric and astral bodies, [it was able] to develop all of the innermost qualities of the human being.

[ 5 ] Now he was maturing, ready to ascend to an even higher, more perfect stage. This occurred through the event described by John the Baptist’s baptism in the Jordan. What is it? To understand it, we must discuss the mission of John the Baptist. For what purpose was he sent into the world? One must bear in mind that humanity goes through different epochs. There was an epoch in which inner revelation and inspiration prevailed; most perfectly among the Indian people. [For them, the world was an illusion.] Those who attained such inner revelation were the most advanced people of the time.

[ 6 ] Things are developing slowly. It has become clear from two sources:

[ 7 ] First, that while they still had sources of inspiration, these became increasingly imperfect. This was the case with the Egyptians.

[ 8 ] Second, that people gradually came to understand the meaning of the external world; that the world is an external expression of the spirit. This was what Zarathustra had to teach the Persian people; [this was] his mission. This was the meaning of his doctrine of the sun; [that] Maya is [the] expression of spiritual beings. Man can perceive the spirit not only within, but also through the veil of external illusion. Thus Zarathustra taught his people the doctrine of light in this world. The spirit of his teaching was roughly this: Oh, we humans are still imperfect in regard to our senses and [our] intellect. But we will gradually educate ourselves. Behind the illusion lies the spiritual meaning of the world, and we will develop in such a way that this spirit may reach us.

[ 9 ] What Zarathustra brought to his people was a message of confidence, of hope in a light appearing in the world. Because Zarathustra was dealing with a special people, he was able to do this.

[ 10 ] [There were] two migratory movements: When the Atlantic catastrophe struck, people began to migrate from west to east. Two movements: [One went] across Europe all the way to Asia. Northern, Central, and Southern Europe were traversed by the northern migratory wave, some of whom remained here. [A second stream went] through Africa and on to Asia. There were two migratory streams because they were differently disposed. The northern one was disposed to develop intellect and reason, to look outward. Those who migrated through Africa were disposed to look more inward, to develop the powers of quiet contemplation, and not to look so much out into the external world. [The most advanced people of the northern stream] were the Proto-Persians, among whom Zarathustra worked. The prevailing mood in the other, the African stream, was: “No matter how hard you work, the outer world is not meant for finding the spirit within it. It is fragmented, to be found only after death”—Osiris.

[ 11 ] Both currents were meant to converge: the inner and the outer. The most perfect of the two, as a revelation, was the ancient Indian tradition—the Egyptian was less perfect: looking inward into the life of the soul. The Persian tradition: looking outward. One thing, however, was characteristic of all human beings. They could not yet attain perfect self-awareness; they lived in the spirit when they subdued, lowered their consciousness, surrendered it. Even the people of Zarathustra had to fall into ecstasy, surrendering to lightning, thunder, [the sun]. Only after a long evolution did human beings become mature enough to unite the inner and outer revelations. The time when this became possible had come when John the Baptist and Christ Jesus appeared. There had been no such people before who could experience the revelation of the Spirit while maintaining the ego, self-consciousness. What were people like before? They could say to themselves: We can come to the Spirit, but we must leave behind our best, our ego. We must give up our self-consciousness and be carried away into a beyond; in our earthly human nature we cannot experience the heavenly realms.

[ 12 ] John the Baptist was able to proclaim that the time had now come when human beings could experience the heavenly realms while maintaining their self-awareness—while preserving their sense of self. That was John’s proclamation: The kingdoms of heaven have come!

[ 13 ] How could he show that this was so? If he had simply told people, “You are ready to use your ego to enter the spiritual realm,” they would not have understood. How could he teach them this? Only through the baptism of John. It consisted of a complete immersion in water. What happened? You know what it’s like when you’re drowning... The etheric body is drawn out for a while... At that moment, people are freed from the obstacles of the physical body.

[ 14 ] The fact that the inner human being is now ready to experience the spiritual realm while maintaining a sense of self is expressed in the symbolism of the baptism in the Jordan. What kind of people were those who were baptized? The first ones who said: Our ego is now such that it can gradually ascend with self-awareness. [Gap in the transcript] So there were some people who knew what the world clock had struck. Thus this small group was able to say to themselves: In every human being there is an “I”-center that can ascend. — They knew this from experience. The greatest teachers could have taught this without being understood.

[ 15 ] In the past, one could only teach: When a person surrenders his ego and makes it objective, he creates the conditions for himself to ascend. When you merge with the entire people, do not feel yourselves as individual human beings, but are immersed in the collective self of the people; when you tell yourselves and feel this: I want to be one with Abraham—then, through this self-forgetfulness of the ego, you can hope to find the spiritual world.

[ 16 ] But it is not right to carry over what was good for one era into another. John the Baptist now had to teach differently: the element [needed to] ascend was to be found within the self. That was his new teaching.

[ 17 ] When the ancient teachers arrived, how did the Baptist address them? The conservatives, who wished to perpetuate the ancient teachings in the astral realm... The symbol of the serpent was always chosen to represent the astral. [He said:] You adherents of the serpent doctrine, why have you come, you who refuse to acknowledge what the world clock now shows? ...

[ 18 ] Now came forth the one who bore the “I” of Zarathustra within himself, in the astral body the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha, and in the etheric body that which was unaffected by the Luciferic principle. Jesus came and was baptized. He had gone into hiding [gap in the transcript].

[ 19 ] Then that exquisite, great, pure etheric body withdrew from the physical body; everything that had lived within Gautama Buddha withdrew. The images of all that had gone before, of all that had been experienced, stood before him. Thus did Jesus of Nazareth experience what was within him, what had gradually drawn into him. He saw all of this within himself. That was the greatest moment on Earth that has ever been experienced. In the etheric body was revealed what humanity would have become had it not descended into the Luciferic influences: the image of the perfectly pure human being. And what was revealed in his astral body? Before his soul stood what Gautama Buddha had experienced. Gautama Buddha had looked back, as an Enlightened One, upon the entire development of the Earth. He had seen how, with each incarnation, humanity had become ever more material. Therefore, Buddha could only reflect on what could lead humanity beyond physical incarnation. A teaching of suffering: Everything is suffering. The teaching of liberation from the earthly body. Therefore, he gave guidance in the teaching of compassion and love: to attain that which could liberate humanity. Salvation would have been achieved from suffering. But earthly existence would have been lost to humanity. Buddhism is a religion of salvation. Christianity is a religion of resurrection. Nothing is to be lost. Everything is to be carried over into the spirit. You should regard yourselves as disciples, bringing everything into the spiritual worlds in order to allow it to rise again in a higher sense. — Christianity is a religion of awakening and resurrection. Liberation from pain is the ultimate meaning of the Buddha. The transformation of pain into bliss is the ultimate meaning of Christianity.

[ 20 ] In this world, we are meant to experience something we cannot experience anywhere else. To transform base metal into the gold of the spirit—that is our task. We will transform ourselves in this way as we gradually overcome what lives within us as the concept of pain. Overcoming illness: overcoming gives strength. [Death] is [the] strongest illusion, Maya. If everything is deceptive, if everything is mixed with Maya, then death is only a lie, is only Maya. We are moving toward overcoming death. Golgotha is the only place where death appears to us in its truth: as the bringer of new life.

[ 21 ] Only within Maya are we separated from what we love. When we transcend the sensory world, our union becomes all the more intense. It is impossible, through spiritual progress, to be separated from what we love. United with what we do not love? One learns to love everything. Not attaining what one desires? We attain such purified desires that the obstacles of the physical world do not stand in our way. This is how the great progress from the Buddha’s teaching to Christ’s teaching presents itself. We are not to flee or abandon the world, but to take it with us. The Buddha seeks to redeem himself from the world. Christ seeks to redeem the world along with himself.

[ 22 ] In the Jordan, Jesus of Nazareth experienced that infinite measure of pain which Gautama Buddha had once borne in his soul; this was what Jesus had to experience. All the glory to which humanity is called stood before him as an image on the one hand, while suffering stood on the other. He could say to himself: “There is the image that comes from the pure etheric body; human beings have forfeited it in order to come into the physical body. What is in the other image is what the best among them have felt: the suffering, the pain for humanity.”

[ 23 ] Thus, that consciousness in Jesus stood alone before all of humanity. What must he have told himself? It is impossible to ascend into the spiritual worlds with the level of consciousness that humanity has attained so far. All of that must be surrendered, and something entirely new must be created: a new etheric body that leads upward to ever more perfect stages. For this to happen, it was necessary that what humanity had achieved up to that point be shattered at the very moment this consciousness arose.

[ 24 ] All of this took place within this soul. At the moment when the etheric body and the astral body returned, how did they affect him? In such a way that all those great sensations, killing and dissolving ideas, acted upon the physical body. It was too much for this physical body. Two things occurred: The I of Zarathustra belonged to this body. Now a new task was set. The I of Zarathustra left him, and a new I, corresponding to that consciousness, moved into the body—as a new I, as the Christ-I—a body that had begun to die because the consciousness had become too great. The Christ-consciousness moved into this body.

[ 25 ] We have thus touched upon the mystery of the greatest moment in the history of the Earth. “Behold, this is the Lamb of God!” John could say, “who has endured all the sufferings of humanity in his soul.” We must regard this event not only as a cosmic one, but also as a human one. The significance of this soul lay in the fact that it not only yearned for redemption, for liberation, but [that it] resolved to bring about a new phase of development. It was a free decision in the soul of Christ Jesus to live through these three years.

[ 26 ] What is significant here is that, at the moment of John’s baptism, it was a free decision to take upon himself the entire destiny of humanity.