The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] That individuality which was embodied at the baptism of John in the body that had formerly housed the Zarathustra-I possessed, by virtue of being such a high individuality, a capacity for suffering and pain that was by no means lesser. On the contrary.

[ 2 ] This must be emphasized because many people believe that the being who incarnated at the baptism of John was a higher individuality and therefore suffered less. But that is not the case. Which individuality incarnated? The Zarathustra individuality left the three bodies, and then another individuality moved in. Only slowly and gradually can one rise to an understanding of the one who lived these three years on earth. [This was a being who had never before been on earth.] Zarathustra had once proclaimed that behind the physical sunlight stands Ahura-Mazdao, the spiritual light. We are not to imagine anything abstract here, but a real spiritual being, an individuality that has never incarnated before or since. A complete understanding is attained when one ascends to even higher levels than we have attempted to suggest. [For: To understand this, one must first begin by understanding oneself.]

[ 3 ] Human beings must tell themselves: I have gradually developed from an imperfect being into what I am today. But I will gradually become more and more perfect. There is something within me, like a seed, that will eventually blossom. [Step by step, he has developed into the feeling, willing, and thinking being that he is now. But we also find hidden potentials within us—seeds that have not yet sprouted and that point to continued development in coming ages. The more a person develops in this way, the richer his knowledge of the world becomes, and the deeper his understanding of the mystery of life.]

[ 4 ] Thus, a person can compare his own being with that of the great world. What is he seeking from one incarnation to the next? I will find ever more insights and feelings about the world within my soul. Whoever says he can find this in his soul, and that it is not outside, should simply say that he would drink water from a glass [in which] there is nothing. Whatever thoughts and feelings a person ultimately allows to rise within his soul must be contained within it. Everything we will yet find throughout the future must underlie the world. Spiritual content is within the world. What a person can ultimately find within themselves was contained in the world from the very beginning.

[ 5 ] What does a person find outside?

1. The world of minerals operates according to the so-called lifeless laws of nature.
2. He finds plants and says that he has the same within himself. 3. And also the same thing that is in animals.

[ 6 ] But he possesses something that others do not, and he must continually develop this further. The animal can rise to the level of sound, which is an expression of inner pain, but not to that which configures our sound in such a way that it is a manifestation of the content of our thoughts. Through this, human beings can feel themselves to be the crown of earthly creation. And what produces this sound, they can designate as their “I.” In the human being is the word interwoven with thought, radiating as it were from the “I.” This word has therefore always been regarded [gap in the transcript]. If the human being can look into a distant future, so that ever higher things may interweave his word [gap in the transcript].

[ 7 ] [If we look back to the most ancient times, we find the “I” spread throughout the world, and if we go back even further, we find the World Word as an expression of the World-I; we find that the World Word sprang from the World-I.]

[ 8 ] Just as the human body is the physical expression of the self that lives within it, so the universe is a physical expression of the World Word. Zarathustra called Ahura-Mazdao the World Word that lies behind the light of the world. In Greek, this World Word was called the Logos, so that Zarathustra pointed beyond the light to the World Word. And John the Baptist was called to recognize when this World Word was to manifest itself. He was to say when it would take on a physical form: Until now, the World Word has been poured out only throughout the entire expanse of the universe; now it has first taken hold of a soul.

[ 9 ] Thus we see that in the thirtieth year of life, the Zarathustra-self leaves the body, and that which lies at the foundation of our cosmos as spiritual substance takes its place.

[ 10 ] The one whom Christ appointed as his herald said: [Gap in the transcript.] In the beginning, the Word of the World was not in man, but was spread throughout the world; yet it was /Gap in the transcript.] In the very beginning, however, the Logos was not with a human being, but with God. And little by little the Logos poured itself into humanity, very gradually. First through the Logos becoming life—in what was originally the physical human body. Then came the time of the Luciferic influences. Had they not come, humanity would also have been permeated by the Logos in regard to the etheric body; thus only a part was permeated. The astral body in astral light would have become radiant within the human being had the Luciferic influences not come; thus it was darkened. The light did not shine in such a way that the human being could perceive it as radiant light. It shone into the darkness. It shone forth fully at the moment of John’s baptism: And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. The Logos had entered a human body, and had taken upon himself everything that human beings had made of themselves by descending ever deeper into matter. Thus he had taken all pain upon himself. Through this, one can gradually gain an understanding of what happened at the baptism of John.

[ 11 ] But he was not only to experience what one experiences from incarnation to incarnation, but also what one feels in the human body through initiation. This was not written by John the Evangelist, for his task was to describe the Christ of knowledge; it was left to the others—Matthew and Luke—to describe the Christ living in the astral body.

[ 12 ] Matthew describes the Solomonic Jesus-child up to his twelfth year. Even though the Zarathustra-I was later present in the other, the Nathanic Jesus-child, it had nevertheless developed within the first, awakening all the feelings within him; thus, what it had experienced in that body remained with him. Matthew described Christ-Jesus in particular as a human being. The one who had to describe the astral body in particular was Luke. The seers Matthew and Luke described the human Jesus, Matthew from the outside, Luke from the inside.

[ 13 ] The seers Mark and John had something else to write. Mark had to focus his gaze on the Logos as it permeates all things, on the Logos at the periphery, as it shines forth in Jesus of Nazareth; he therefore describes what took place after the baptism.

[ 14 ] John wanted to describe how this Logos became an inner essence when the I-ness was revealed. [For John, Christ was above all the victor, the great conqueror, to whom humanity looks up as its ideal.]

[ 15 ] The evangelists Matthew and Luke describe the human aspect. The human being with an outer aspect, permeated by the Christ-presence: Mark; the inner Logos: John. How he comes from without and becomes inner: Mark; how he becomes flesh and pours himself outwards: John.

[ 16 ] Now we should describe how the human being who bore Christ within himself experienced not only the human aspect, the temporal aspect, but also the initiate, the eternal aspect — Mark.

[ 17 ] The others describe, like true seers, what must be overcome. What the “I” means once it has been overcome—the highest perfection—is described by John. In the times before Christ Jesus lived, one could experience initiation in two ways: the more Egyptian and [the more Persian—Mithras]. Egyptian: Developing toward the inner self, turning away from the outer world, toward the inner. All that ebbs and flows in the astral body is Maya, and only when we descend into deeper realms do we reach the spiritual.

[ 18 ] Let us imagine a soul that has been initiated in Egypt. It had to uncover all the evil that had crept into this soul from one incarnation to the next. Today this is called the Tempter or the little Guardian of the Threshold. It is the expression of the Luciferic entity within the soul: pride, falsehood. The human being had to free themselves from it.

[ 19 ] A person can free themselves only from that which they face eye to eye. They must examine all sources of pride and vanity within themselves if they wish to be free of them; they must experience every possibility of illusion, every possibility of deception. [At this stage, the temptation easily arises within him to believe that he has already found spiritual reality, that he already knows something, possesses something. Here he encounters the little guardian of the threshold.] This is what the initiate in the Egyptian mysteries had to do: encounter all that the Luciferic beings have made of the soul. In the Greek Mysteries, it was called Diabolos.

[ 20 ] In the Persian initiation, which sought to lead the individual outwards, the individual did not have to descend into himself, but rather emerge from himself, entering into ecstasy. There was another power to be seen: the one that prevents him from finding the spirit in the outer world, the one that deceives him into believing that the veil of the senses is the only reality. To believe that the physical is a reality is just as foolish as seeing the reflection as the truth.

[ 21 ] But the Luciferic forces have led people to regard the veil of Maya, which has become opaque, as the truth. Zarathustra knew how to speak of that second kind of forces that prevent human beings from reaching the spirit: Ahriman, who was able to oppose them after the Luciferic powers had woven the veil. When a human being enters a state of ecstasy, they bring with them the error that the outer world is not a veil. This is what the second guardian of the threshold protects them from: the belief in materiality appears before their eyes like a mirage. The great guardian is the one who urges them to distinguish this illusion they have brought with them from the true spiritual world.

[ 22 ] There are thus two stages to distinguish: Either a person must have the strength to resist and rush past, or they remain with the guardian of the threshold and cannot proceed further. That is why [there is] the possibility of remaining with vanity and lies, with the Diabolos. Whereas the external tempter, who presents the illusions, is called Satan. We encounter Satan as the tempter when we follow the path outward; Diabolos, when we follow the path inward. The great guardian of the threshold leads us out beyond the temptations of Satan.

[ 23 ] In Christ Jesus, both initiations were to be united; therefore, he had to overcome both tempters.

[ 24 ] The seer Mark describes that tempter who paints illusory images—Satan—; and the writers of the human aspect of Christ Jesus had to depict how, through the descent into the soul, the other tempter came to stand before him. If you read the scenes of the temptation in Matthew and Luke, you will see that they differ greatly from Mark’s account, and for good reason: Satan in the context of external initiation, Diabolos in the context of inner initiation. It is no coincidence that they are described this way; rather, there is a sound basis for it. Consequently, the scene of the temptation is also depicted differently.

[ 25 ] “Turn these stones into bread,” say Luke and Matthew; and the tempter, the Diabolos, speaks of vanity: “All this I will give you, that you may rule over it.” — Here is described the person who selfishly wants to build a world for himself within his own inner being and does not believe that one must penetrate the world that is spread out all around us.

[ 26 ] And Markus—the initiate who goes out into the world—what does he experience? In the outer world there are two realms of nature, the mineral and the plant, which have not yet been permeated by an astral body. It is only in the astral body and the I that the possibility of vanity and error lies, the possibility of falling. This can be carried by us into the outer world; so in what forms will our errors clothe themselves? In animal forms, not in plants. The possibility of error regarding the outer world expresses itself in animal forms, which we must overcome. Only by seeing beside himself the angelic form of the great Guardian of the Threshold does the human being overcome the animal forms that he might otherwise take for truths of the spiritual world. This is why it is so beautifully expressed in Mark: He was led into the desert, and he was among the animals, and the angels ministered to him—that is to say: They led him upward.

[ 27 ] When two Gospels describe different things, we can demonstrate that they have good reason to say different things. The path inward, then, leads through the temptations and the little guardian of the threshold, who destroys self-delusion. The path of Mark leads outward.

[ 28 ] Thus, the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—do not describe what the ordinary person must go through on earth, but rather the initiate of every kind.

[ 29 ] But the writer of the Gospel of John had to describe how Christ becomes the Victor, the one who is able to live the life of the whole world. The ideal of the future is exemplified for us by Christ Jesus. Such an individual does not live selfishly within, but in every being. Therefore, it can evoke within every being the powers to live in this way one day. — I am the light and the life. — He can therefore pour this light and life into another individuality. In the raising of Lazarus, we have the description of that power whose life can flow over into another individuality. — His death will appear as life, for I am the life.

[ 30 ] Because he wanted to portray this powerful individuality, the author of the Gospel of John does not begin by describing the temptations, but rather the Overcomer. And he became the Victor at the price that Christ Jesus made himself the Lamb of God, who desires to be nothing other than the expression of God, nothing other than that which can provide an opportunity for the World-Will to act.

[ 31 ] In the same way, John the Baptist’s conviction is sparked by the realization that the one standing before him is truly the Lamb—ready for this.

[ 32 ] Theosophists can increasingly recognize the truths independently of the Gospels, and these truths shine out at them from the Gospels. This is why we realize that those who wrote the Gospels were seers. This is the result when we first discover the truths independently.