The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] This is now the third time that I have had the opportunity here in Switzerland to discuss the greatest event in the history of the earth and humanity from a certain perspective. The first time was when I was permitted to speak in Basel about this event from the perspective provided by the Gospel of John; the second time, when I was permitted to present the characterization of this event based on the Gospel of Luke; and this time, for the third time, the inspiration for this account will come from the Gospel of Matthew. I have often suggested that there lies something significant precisely in the fact that this event is preserved for us in four documents that appear, in a certain sense, to differ from one another. What, in a sense, prompts today’s outwardly materialistic mindset to intervene with a negative, corrosive critique is precisely what appears significant to us according to our anthroposophical conviction. No one should presume to characterize any being or fact if they view it from only one side. I have often used this comparison: If one photographs a tree from one side, no one may claim that this photograph provides a true representation of what the tree presents to the eye from the outside; if, on the other hand, one were to photograph the tree from four sides, and even if one were to obtain four different images that bear little resemblance to one another, one would still be able to form a complete view of the tree by looking at these four images together. If this is already the case in such an external sense for every single thing, how could one not suppose that an event which encompasses the greatest abundance of happenings, the greatest abundance of the essence of all existence for us humans, could not possibly be comprehended if one were to describe it from only one side? Therefore, it is not contradictions that come to light in the four Gospels. Rather, the underlying fact here is that the writers were aware that each of them could describe this momentous event only from one side, and that humanity can succeed in gradually gaining an overall picture by viewing these various descriptions together. And so let us, too, be patient and try to gradually approach this greatest event of the Incarnation by relying on these four accounts and developing, for our part, what we can know based on these documents, which we call the New Testament.

[ 2 ] From some of what has been said earlier, you can already begin to grasp how the four different starting points or perspectives of the Gospels can be presented. For now, however, before I even attempt to provide a superficial description of these four perspectives, I would like to point out that at the beginning of this lecture series I do not intend to do what is customary today when presenting the Gospel or one of the Gospels. One usually begins by describing their historical origins. This will work out best for us if we wait until the end of our series to discuss, for example, the history of the origins of the Gospel of Matthew. For it is only natural—and could be demonstrated by examples from other sciences—that one can only understand the history of a given subject once one has grasped the subject itself. For example, no one who knows nothing about arithmetic will be able to approach a history of arithmetic with any benefit. Everywhere else, the historical account is placed at the end, and where this is not done, the structure contradicts the natural needs of human cognition. And so we too will accommodate these needs of human cognition and attempt to examine the content of the Gospel we wish to discuss, and then go into some detail regarding a presentation of the historical development of this particular Gospel.

[ 3 ] If you allow the Gospels to sink in from the outside, you can already sense a certain difference in the way these Gospels present things, in the way they speak. If you allow what has been said in my lectures on the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Luke to sink in, then you will have an even clearer sense of this distinction, particularly with regard to these two Gospels. When one engages with the Gospel of John, one must say that wherever one attempts to penetrate its powerful messages, one is overcome by a sense of spiritual grandeur to which one looks up with a sense of awe, and that in the Gospel of John one can find how it reveals to us the highest to which human wisdom can look up, the highest that can gradually become accessible to human knowledge. Human beings stand there, as it were, below, looking up to a summit of worldly existence and saying to themselves: However small you may be as a human being, the Gospel of John lets you sense that something is entering your soul with which you are kindred and which overwhelms you like a feeling of the infinite. Thus, it is primarily the spiritual greatness of the beings of the worlds, kindred to the human being, that enters our soul when we speak of the Gospel of John.

[ 4 ] Let us now recall the feeling that might have come over us when reading the Gospel of Luke. Everything that must have permeated that account of the Gospel of Luke back then was different. While in the Gospel of John it is primarily the spiritual grandeur to which we look up with a sense of awe that permeates our soul like a magical breath when we immerse ourselves in the messages of this Gospel, in the Gospel of Luke it is the intimacy, the soulfulness itself, that meets us; one might say, the intensity of all that the forces of love in the world are capable of, of what the forces of sacrifice in the world can accomplish, when we are able to share in them. While the Gospel of John depicts the essence of Christ Jesus in its spiritual grandeur, the Gospel of Luke shows us this essence in its immeasurable capacity for sacrifice, and it allows us to sense what has come to pass in the overall evolution of the world and humanity through such a sacrifice of love, which, like a force among other forces, pulses through and weaves itself into the world. Thus, it is primarily the element of feeling in which we live and move when we allow the Gospel of Luke to take effect upon us, and it is the element of knowledge that speaks to us of the ultimate reasons and ultimate goals of this knowledge, which comes to meet us from the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John speaks more to our intellect, the Gospel of Luke more to our heart. One can sense this in the individual Gospels themselves; but it was also our aim to allow this underlying mood to permeate, as it were, what we presented as spiritual-scientific interpretations of these two texts. Anyone who wanted to hear only words during the lecture series on the Gospel of John or the Gospel of Luke has truly not heard everything. The manner of speaking was fundamentally different in the lecture series. Everything will have to be quite different again when we approach the Gospel of Matthew.

[ 5 ] In the case of the Gospel of Luke, we saw everything we call human love—as it once existed in the course of human development—flowing into the being who lived as Christ Jesus at the beginning of our New Testament era. If one allows the Gospel of Matthew to affect one only superficially, then one must say that it is, first and foremost, a document that is actually more multifaceted than the other two, indeed, in a certain respect, more multifaceted than all three of the other Gospels.

[ 6 ] And when we come to examine the Gospel of Mark, we will see that it, too, is in a certain sense one-sided. While the Gospel of John reveals the wisdom of Christ Jesus and the Gospel of Luke reveals the power of love, a description of the Gospel of Mark will present us with what, above all, passes through all the realms of the world as power, as creative forces—one might say, as the glory of the world. But there is something overwhelming in the Gospel of Mark in the way the intensity of the world’s power is lived out. It is as if the world’s power were rushing toward us from all sides of space, if we truly bring the Gospel of Mark to our understanding!

[ 7 ] Thus, what we encounter in the Gospel of Luke is something that touches our souls deeply and warmly; what we experience in the Gospel of John is something that gives us hope for the soul; and what we feel when we allow the Gospel of Mark to take effect is something like a shudder at the power and glory of the forces of the universe, before which we might almost collapse.

[ 8 ] The Gospel of Matthew is different. All three elements—the hopeful, promising element of knowledge, the warm element of feeling and love, and also the majestic grandeur of the world—are, one might say, present in the Gospel of Matthew. But they are, in a certain sense, so toned down there that, in their toned-down state, they seem much more familiar to us as human beings than in the other three Gospels. When we allow the other three Gospels to take effect upon us, we feel as though we might quite collapse before the grandeur of knowledge, love, and glory. All of this is present in the Gospel of Matthew, but it is presented in such a way that we are able to stand upright in its presence. It is all more humanly familiar to us, so that we can stand not beneath it, but, in a certain sense, alongside it. Nowhere are we crushed by the Gospel of Matthew, even though it also contains some of what can have a crushing effect in the other three Gospels. Therefore, the Gospel of Matthew is the most generally human of these four documents. It portrays Christ Jesus to us most of all as a human being, so that when we allow him to work upon us as the Christ Jesus of Matthew, he stands close to us in all his members, in all his deeds. In a certain sense, the Gospel of Matthew is something like a commentary on the three other Gospels. What is sometimes too vast for us to grasp in the other three becomes clear to us on a smaller scale through the Gospel of Matthew. And when we understand this, a meaningful light will be shed upon the other three Gospels. This is easily understood from the details.

[ 9 ] Let us first consider what is about to be said purely from a stylistic perspective. In order for the Gospel of Luke to describe how the highest degree of love and self-sacrifice flows from this being we call Christ Jesus into humanity and into the world, it draws upon a current of human development that descends from the most ancient times of the Earth’s creation. And Luke himself describes this current for us all the way back to the dawn of humanity. - In order to show us where humanity, with its knowledge and wisdom, can begin and set out toward the goal to which this knowledge can lead, the Gospel of John presents to us right at the beginning how the portrayal of Christ Jesus is rooted in the creative Logos itself. The most spiritual thing we can attain through our knowledge is set forth right in the first sentences of the Gospel of John. We are immediately led to the highest point of the quest for knowledge, to a summit that can be brought to life within the human heart. — It is different in the Gospel of Matthew. It begins by showing us the genealogical relationships of the man Jesus of Nazareth in their origin, so to speak, from a historical perspective. It shows us the genealogical relationships within a single people: how, in a sense, all the lineages that we find united in Jesus of Nazareth have been summed up through heredity from Abraham onward, as if a people, through three times fourteen generations, had allowed the best it possessed to flow into the blood, in order to represent the highest human powers in a perfect way within a human individuality. - The Gospel of John leads us into the infinity of the Logos. The Gospel of Luke ascends into the immeasurability of human evolution all the way back to the beginning. A manageable people, passing down its characteristics from the patriarch Abraham through three times fourteen generations—this is what the Gospel of Matthew shows us; thus it shows us the man Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 10 ] It can only be hinted at here that for anyone who truly wishes to understand the Gospel of Mark, it is necessary to have, in a certain sense, an understanding of the cosmological forces that permeate the entire unfolding of our world. For just as Christ Jesus is portrayed in the Gospel of Mark, we are shown how, within a human activity, there is an extract, an essence from the cosmos—an essence of what otherwise lives in the immeasurable expanse of the world as cosmic forces. We are shown how the deeds of Christ Jesus are, as it were, extracts of cosmic forces. Just as the human-god Christ Jesus, as he stands on earth, stands before us, as it were, as an extract of the sun’s activity with all its immeasurability—this is what the Gospel of Mark seeks to depict for us. Thus, Mark describes how the activity of the stars works through human power.

[ 11 ] The Gospel of Matthew also touches upon the influence of the stars in a certain way. It therefore leads us, right there where it describes the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, to a vantage point from which we are to view this great cosmic event in such a way that cosmic facts stand in a certain connection with the becoming of humanity, by showing the star that guides the three Magi to the birthplace of Jesus. But it does not describe a cosmic effect to us, as the Gospel of Mark does; it does not require us to lift our gaze to this cosmic effect: it shows us three human beings, three Magi, and the effect that the cosmic exerts upon these three human beings. And we can turn to these three human beings to sense what they feel. Thus, we are directed toward the human being even when we are to rise up to the cosmic. The reflection of the cosmic in the human heart is shown. The gaze is not carried out into immeasurable expanses, but the effect of the cosmic in the human heart is shown to us.

[ 12 ] I ask once again that these allusions be understood solely in a stylistic sense. For the fundamental nature of the Gospels is that they present the story from various perspectives. The manner in which they present it is entirely characteristic of what they seek to convey to us about the greatest event in the evolution of humanity and the Earth.

[ 13 ] This is also, first and foremost, the most significant aspect of the opening of the Gospel of Matthew: we are directed to the immediate bloodline of Jesus of Nazareth. It answers, as it were, the question: What was the physical nature of this Jesus of Nazareth? How were all the characteristics of a people since the patriarch Abraham summed up in this one personality, so that the entity we call the Christ-entity could reveal itself in him? This question is answered for us. We are told: In order for the Christ-essence to incarnate in a physical body, that physical body had to possess characteristics that it could only possess if all the characteristics of the blood of that people descended from Abraham were summed up and represented in an extract within that one personality: Jesus of Nazareth. It is therefore to be shown: This blood in Jesus of Nazareth truly traces back through generations to the progenitor of the Hebrew people. Thus, the essence of this people—that which this people represents, particularly for world history and for the development of humanity and the Earth—is concentrated especially in the physical personality of Jesus of Nazareth. What, then, must one first know if one wishes to grasp the intention of the author of the Gospel of Matthew regarding this introduction? One must know the essence of the Hebrew people! One must be able to answer the question: What could be the contribution that the Hebrew people, precisely through their uniqueness, had to offer to humanity?

[ 14 ] Our external history—the external, materialistic accounts of history—pay little heed to what is being discussed here. External history describes external facts. And there, one people stands pretty much next to another, because the description is entirely abstract. In the process, the fact that is fundamental for anyone who wishes to understand human development recedes entirely into the background: namely, the fact that no people has the same task in human development as another, but that every people has its own special mission and its own special tasks. Every people has a part to contribute to the total treasure that is to be delivered to the Earth through human development. And each of these parts is different, a very specific one. Every people has its specific mission. Now, however, down to the details of physical conditions, every people is constituted in such a way that it can indeed properly fulfill this contribution it is to make to all of humanity. In other words, the bodies of the people belonging to a nation reveal to us such a configuration of both the physical body and the etheric and astral bodies, and such a combination of these bodies, that they can become the right instrument for bringing about that contribution which every nation is to make for all of humanity. - What contribution, then, was the Hebrew people in particular to make, and how did the essence of this contribution by the Hebrew people then take shape in the body of Jesus of Nazareth?

[ 15 ] If one wishes to understand the mission of the Hebrew people, one must look a little more deeply into the overall development of humanity. It will be necessary here to characterize in somewhat greater detail some of what you can find outlined in my *Outline of Esoteric Science* and in my lectures. We can best understand the role of the Hebrew people in the overall development of humanity if we take, at least in a few brief, characteristic strokes, as our starting point that great catastrophe in human development which we call the Atlantean catastrophe.

[ 16 ] As the Atlantic catastrophe gradually engulfed the Earth, the people who lived on the ancient Atlantic continent at that time migrated from west to east. Essentially, there were two main currents in this migration: one that moved more to the north, and another that took a more southerly route. Thus, we have a great human migration of the Atlantean population that passed through Europe and on to Asia; and if one considers the area around the Caspian Sea, one gets a rough idea of how this migration of the Atlantean population gradually spread. Another stream, however, passed through what is now Africa. And over in Asia, a sort of confluence of these two streams then arose, as if two streams were meeting and forming a whirlpool.

[ 17 ] What should now be of primary interest to us is what the outlook, the entire spiritual constitution, of these peoples—or at least of their main masses—was like, having been cast from ancient Atlantis toward the East. It was indeed the case that in the early post-Atlantean period, the entire soul constitution was different from what it later became, and especially from what it is today. Among all these masses of people, a more clairvoyant perception of their surroundings still existed. People at that time could, so to speak, still see the spiritual, and even what is seen physically today was perceived in a more spiritual way. Thus, a more clairvoyant form of life and soul existed back then. It is particularly important, however, that this clairvoyance of the original post-Atlantean population was, in a certain respect, different from, for example, the clairvoyance of the Atlantean population itself during the actual heyday of Atlantean development. During the heyday of Atlantean development, the highly developed clairvoyant abilities of human beings were such that they looked into the spiritual world in a pure way, and that the revelations of the spiritual world produced impulses toward the good in the human soul. And one could even say: Those who were more capable of looking into the spiritual world received a greater impulse toward the good during this heyday of Atlantean development; and those who could see less received a less powerful impulse toward the good.

[ 18 ] The changes that then took place on Earth, however, were such that by the last third of the Atlantean era—and especially in the post-Atlantean era—it was precisely the positive aspects of the ancient clairvoyance that had gradually faded away. Only those who underwent special training in the initiation centers had preserved the positive aspects of Atlantean clairvoyance. What, on the other hand, remained of Atlantean clairvoyance in a natural way took on, over time, such a character that one can say: What people saw there very easily led to the perception of precisely the evil, seductive, and tempting forces of existence. The clairvoyant human gaze gradually became scarcely strong enough to perceive the good forces. In contrast, humanity was left to see the evil, that which could be a temptation or seduction for people. And among certain sections of the post-Atlantean population, a very unwholesome form of clairvoyance was widespread—a clairvoyance that was itself, in fact, a kind of tempter.

[ 19 ] This decline of the ancient clairvoyant power was accompanied by a blossoming, a gradual development of that sensory perception which we recognize as normal for humanity today. The things that people saw with their eyes in the early post-Atlantean era—and that people see today with their ordinary eyes—were not at all alluring back then, because the soul forces capable of experiencing them had not yet developed. Through an outward appearance that can so easily turn people into hedonists today—and even if such a sight were the most alluring to modern people—the post-Atlantean human was not particularly tempted. On the contrary, it spurred him on when he developed the remnants of the old clairvoyance. They could hardly see the good side of the spiritual world anymore, but the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces acted upon them with great power, so that they saw the forces and powers that could be tempters and deceivers. Thus, humanity perceived the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces through its ancient, inherited powers of clairvoyance. What mattered now was that the leaders and guides of human evolution—who derived their wisdom for guiding humanity from the Mysteries—took steps to ensure that, despite this state of affairs, people nevertheless moved ever more toward the good and toward clarity.

[ 20 ] Now, the people who had spread eastward after the Atlantean catastrophe were at very different stages of development. One could say that the further east one went, the more moral and spiritually advanced the people became. In a certain sense, what appeared to the outer senses as a new world took shape with ever greater clarity; it increasingly had the effect of allowing the grandeur and splendor of the outer sensory world to impress upon people. This was the case the further one went eastward. People living, for example, in the regions north of present-day India, as far as the Caspian Sea, the Oxus, and the Jaxartes, possessed particularly strong inclinations in this direction. In this central region of Asia, a multitude of peoples had settled who truly provided the material for various ethnic movements that then spread in different directions, including to that people whom we have often characterized in terms of their spiritual worldview: the ancient Indian people.

[ 21 ] In the heart of Asia, among this diverse population, the sense of external reality was already highly developed soon after the Atlantean catastrophe—and in some cases even during that time. At the same time, however, the people incarnated in this region still possessed a vivid memory, a kind of recollection of what they had experienced in the Atlantean world. This was most pronounced among the mass of people who later migrated south to India. Although they had a great appreciation for the splendor of the external world and were the most advanced in observing external sensory perceptions, they also possessed the most highly developed memory of the ancient spiritual perceptions of the Atlantean era. Consequently, a strong urge developed among this people to ascend toward the spiritual world they remembered, along with an ease in looking back into the spiritual world—but alongside this, a sense that what the outer senses presented was Maya or illusion. Hence the impulse also arose among this people not to pay particular attention to the external sensory world, but to do everything possible so that the soul—now through artificial development, through yoga—might rise up to what, during the ancient Atlantean era, humanity could have received directly from the spiritual world.

[ 22 ] This tendency to underestimate the external world and view it as māyā or illusion—and to develop only those impulses that led toward the spiritual—was less pronounced among the segment of the population that remained in northern India. Yet this was a mixed population that found itself in the most tragic of situations. It was inherent in the very nature of the ancient Indian people that a person could, with a certain ease, undergo a specific yogic development through which they could ascend once more to the regions in which they had lived during the Atlantean era. It was easy for them to overcome what they had to regard as an illusion. They overcame it through insight. For them, the highest realization was this: This sensory world is an illusion, is Maya; but if you develop your soul, if you make an effort, then you will reach the world that lies beyond the sensory world! Thus, through an inner process, the Indian overcame what they regarded as Maya or illusion, and what they also sought to overcome.

[ 23 ] The situation was different among the northern peoples, who in history came to be known as the Aryans in the strict sense: the Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and so on. Among them, too, there was a strongly developed sense of external perception, of the external intellect. But the inner urge, the impulse to achieve through inner development—through a kind of yoga—what the Atlantean human possessed naturally was not particularly strong. The living memory was not sufficiently present among the northern peoples for them to translate it into a striving to overcome the illusion of the external world through knowledge. The spiritual disposition of the Indians was not present among these northern peoples. Among them there was a spiritual disposition in which each member of the Iranian, Persian, or Median peoples felt something that, if we were to express it in our present-day terms, would take the following form: If we, as human beings, were once in the spiritual world and experienced and saw spiritual and soul-related things, and have now been transferred into the physical world and stand before a world that we see with our eyes and comprehend with the intellect, which is bound to the brain, then the reason for this does not lie solely within the human being, and one cannot overcome what needs to be overcome merely within the human being; it accomplishes nothing special! — The Iranian would have said: It is not enough for a change to have taken place within the human being alone; nature and everything on Earth must have changed when the human being descended. Therefore, it is not enough for us humans to leave what is around us as it is and simply say: It is all illusion, Maya, and we ourselves ascend into the spiritual world! Then we do indeed change ourselves, but not what has changed in the entire surrounding world.—Therefore, he did not say: Out there, Maya spreads out; I myself will transcend this Maya, achieve the overcoming of Maya within myself, and thereby reach the spiritual world! - No, he said: Human beings belong together with the rest of the surrounding world; they are merely a part of it. So if that which is divine in human beings—and which has descended from divine-spiritual heights—is to be transformed, then it is not merely what is within human beings that must be transformed back, but also that which is in our surroundings. - This gave these peoples a particular impetus to actively intervene in the transformation and re-creation of the world.

[ 24 ] While in India it was said: “The world has fallen; what it now offers is Maya”—to the north of it, it was said: “Certainly, the world has fallen; but we must transform it so that it becomes spiritual once more!” — Sensation, the senses of perception, was the fundamental character of the Indian people. This people coped with the world by calling sensory perception an illusion or Maya. Energy, outward dynamism, the will to transform what exists in the external world—that was the fundamental character of the Iranian people and the other northern peoples. They said: What is around us has descended from the Divine; but humanity is called upon to lead it back to the Divine! — What was essentially already present in the national character of the Iranians was raised to the highest level and imbued with the greatest energy by the spiritual leaders who emerged from the Mysteries.

[ 25 ] One can fully understand—even from an external perspective—what took place to the east and south of the Caspian Sea only by comparing it with what occurred further north, that is, in regions bordering present-day Siberia and present-day Russia, extending even into Europe. There were people who had preserved the ancient clairvoyance to a high degree, and in whom, in a certain sense, a balance was maintained between the capacity for ancient spiritual perception and that of sensory observation, of the new intellectual thinking. Among them, the ability to look into the spiritual world was still present in the widest circles. If one considers the nature of this insight into the spiritual world—which, admittedly, had already descended to a lower level and was essentially, as we would say today, a lower astral clairvoyance among these peoples—a certain consequence arises for the overall development of humanity. Anyone gifted with this kind of clairvoyance becomes a very specific kind of person. The person acquires a certain character disposition. This is particularly evident among those masses of people who possessed this lower clairvoyance in their national character. Such a person essentially has the urge to demand from the natural environment what he needs for his livelihood, and to do as little as possible to wrest it from nature. After all, they know—just as surely as today’s sensory-oriented human knows—that there are plants, animals, and so on, and that there are divine-spiritual beings embedded within all of this; for they see them. They also know that these are the powerful beings standing behind the physical entities. But he also knows them so well that he demands of them that they should, without much work on his part, sustain the existence into which they have placed him. One could cite many examples that are outward expressions of the mood and disposition of these astral clairvoyants. Only one shall be cited here.

[ 26 ] During this period, which is now important for us to consider, all these peoples, who were endowed with a clairvoyance that was in decline, nomadic peoples who, without settling down or establishing permanent dwellings, roamed about as herders, had no particular attachment to any one place, did not particularly care for what the earth offered them, and were also quite willing to destroy what was around them if they needed something for their livelihood. But these peoples were not inclined to achieve anything to raise the level of culture or to reshape the earth.

[ 27 ] This is how the great, the crucial contrast arose—one that is perhaps the most significant aspect of post-Atlantean development: the contrast between these more northerly peoples and the Iranian peoples. Among the Iranians, a longing developed to intervene in the events around them, to settle down, to attain through work what one has as a human being and as humanity—that is, to truly transform nature through the powers of the human spirit. This was the greatest urge of the people, especially in this region. And immediately adjacent to this, to the north, came that people who looked into the spiritual world, who were, so to speak, on familiar terms with the spiritual beings, but who did not like to work, who were not settled, and who had no interest whatsoever in advancing cultural work in the physical world.

[ 28 ] This is perhaps the greatest contrast that has emerged externally in the history of the post-Atlantean era, and it is purely a consequence of the different types of soul development. It is the contrast that is also known in external history: the great contrast between Iran and Turan. But the causes are not known. Here we now have the reasons.

[ 29 ] In the north, extending into Siberia: Turan, that mixed multitude of peoples who were endowed to a high degree with the remnants of a lower form of astral clairvoyance; as a result of this life in the spiritual world, they had neither the inclination nor the sense to establish an external culture, but —because these people were of a more passive nature and often even had lower magicians and sorcerers among their priests—engaged, particularly where the spiritual was concerned, in lower sorcery, and in some cases even in black magic. To the south of this: Iran, those regions where the urge arose early on to transform, through human spiritual power and using the most primitive means, that which is given to us in the sensory world, so that external cultures might arise in this way.

[ 30 ] This is the great contrast between Iran and Turan. In a beautiful, mythical, and legendary way, it is suggested how the most culturally advanced group of people migrated southward from the north into the region we have referred to as Iranian. And when the legend of Jamshid—that king who led his peoples down from the north to Iran—tells us that he received from that god, whom he called Ahura Mazda and who would gradually come to be recognized, a golden dagger with which he was to fulfill his mission on earth—then we must be clear that with King Jamshid’s golden dagger, who led his peoples out of the sluggish mass of the Turanians, was given that which is the striving for wisdom bound to the outer human powers—that striving for wisdom which redevelops the powers that had previously fallen into decadence and permeates and interweaves them with what man can attain on the physical plane in terms of spiritual power. This golden dagger, like a plow, turned the earth, made farmland out of the earth, and brought about humanity’s first, most primitive inventions. It has continued to work and continues to work to this day in all that of which people are proud as their cultural achievements. It is significant that King Dschemshid, who descended from Turan into the Iranian territories, received this golden dagger from Ahura Mazda, which gives humanity the power to cultivate the outer sensory world.

[ 31 ] The same being from whom this golden dagger originates is also the great inspirer of that leader of the Iranian people whom we know as Zarathustra, Zoroaster, or Zerdusht. And it was Zarathustra who, in ancient times—shortly after the Atlantean catastrophe—imbued that people, who felt the urge to interweave human spiritual power with external culture, with the treasures he was able to draw from the sacred mysteries. To this end, Zarathustra was to give these peoples—who no longer possessed the ancient Atlantean ability to look into the spiritual world—new perspectives and new hopes regarding the spiritual world. Thus Zarathustra opened the path we have often discussed, along which the peoples were to realize that the outer body of sunlight is merely the outer body of a high spiritual being, which he, in contrast to the small human aura, called the “Great Aura,” Ahura Mazda. He intended thereby to suggest that this being, though still far removed at present, would one day descend to Earth to unite substantially with the Earth within the course of human history and continue to work in the unfolding of humanity. Thus Zarathustra pointed these people toward the very same being who later lived in history as the Christ. In doing so, Zarathustra—or Zoroaster—had accomplished something great, something mighty. He had brought the new post-Atlantean humanity—a humanity that had lost its connection to the divine—back to the spiritual realm and given them the hope that, even with the forces that had descended onto the physical plane, human beings could still attain the spiritual. The ancient Indians had, in a certain sense, regained the old spiritual realm through yoga practice. But a new path was to be opened to humanity through what Zarathustra brought.

[ 32 ] Zarathustra now had an influential patron. — I wish to emphasize explicitly that I am speaking of Zarathustra as a being whom the Greeks already placed in the time five thousand years before the Trojan War; this has nothing to do with what external history designates as Zarathustra, nor with what is mentioned as Zarathustra in the time of Darius. The Zarathustra of these ancient times had a protector who can be referred to by the name Gushtasb, which later became common. We thus have in Zarathustra a powerful priestly nature that points to the great Sun Spirit, to Ahura Mazdao, to that being who is to be the guide for humanity from the outer physical realm back to the spiritual. And in Gushtasb we have the royal nature of one who was inclined to do everything in the outer realm that could spread Zarathustra’s great inspirations throughout the world. Therefore, it was inevitable that these inspirations and these intentions, which made themselves felt in ancient Iran through Zarathustra and through Gushtasb, would clash with what lay immediately north of this region. And from this clash, one of the greatest wars the world has ever known actually developed—a war about which external history reports little, because it took place in ancient times. It was a mighty clash between Iran and Turan. And out of this war, which lasted not decades but centuries, a certain mood developed that persisted for a long time within Asia, a mood that must be put into words something like this.

[ 33 ] The Iranian, the Zoroastrian, said to himself something like the following: Everywhere we look, there is a world that, though it has descended from the divine-spiritual, now appears as a fall from its former heights. We must assume that everything around us—the world of animals, plants, and minerals—was once higher, and that all of this has fallen into decadence. But humanity has the hope of raising it up again. — Let us take an animal, for example. Let us speak in such a way that we translate what lived in the feeling of an Iranian into our language, and let us speak as a teacher in school might speak to his students if he wanted to characterize a similar state of mind. Then we could say: Look at what you have around you. It used to be more spiritual; now it has declined, has fallen into decadence. Let’s take the wolf, for instance. The animal within the wolf, which you see as a sensual being, has declined, has fallen into decadence. Above all, it did not display its bad qualities in the past. But you, when good qualities sprout within you, when you bring your good qualities and spiritual powers together, you can tame the animal. You can weave your own qualities into it. Then you can turn the wolf into a tame dog that serves you! There you have, in the wolf and the dog, two beings that characterize, as it were, two world currents. - The people who used their spiritual powers to shape the environment were able to tame the animals and raise them to a higher level, while the others, who did not use their powers for this purpose, left the animals as they were, so that they had to sink deeper and deeper. These are two different forces. One is expressed in the attitude: If I leave nature as it is, then it sinks deeper and deeper, and everything becomes wild. The other: But I can direct my spiritual eyes toward a good power, of which I am a believer, then it helps me, then I can, with its help, lead back up what wants to sink down. This power, to which I can look up, can give me hope for further development! — For the Iranians, this power identified with Ahura Mazdao, and they said to themselves: Everything a person can do to ennoble the forces of nature, to lift them up, can happen when a person connects with Ahura Mazda, with the power of Ormuzd. Ormuzd is an upward-flowing current. But if a person leaves nature as it is, then one can see how everything drifts into savagery. That comes from Ahriman! — And now the following sentiment developed in the Iranian region: To the north of us, many people are roaming about. They are in the service of Ahriman. These are the people of Ahriman, who merely roam the world and take only what nature offers them, who do not wish to lend a hand to spiritualize nature. But we want to ally ourselves with Ormuzd, with Ahura Mazdao!

[ 34 ] This is how people in the world perceived the duality that had arisen. This is how the Iranian people, the Zoroastrian people, felt, and what they felt in this way, they also expressed in their laws. They wanted to organize their lives in such a way that the striving upward would be expressed in their external legislation. That was the external consequence of Zoroastrianism. Thus we must address the contrast between Iran and Turan. And that war, about which occult history reports so much and with such precision—the war between Arjasb and Gushtasb, one of whom was the king of the Turanians and the other the protector of Zarathustra—we must see this war as a contrast between North and South continuing as a mood in the two regions of Iran and Turan. When we grasp this, we will see a certain flow of the soul emanating from Zarathustra to all of humanity, upon whom he has worked.

[ 35 ] First, it was necessary to describe the entire milieu, the entire environment in which Zarathustra was placed. For we know, after all, that the individuality which incarnated itself into the blood flowing down from Abraham through three times fourteen generations—and which appears in the Gospel of Matthew as Jesus of Nazareth—was the Zarathustra individuality. We had to seek it out first where it first appears to us in the post-Atlantean era. And now the question arises for us: Why was it precisely the blood that flowed down through the generations from Abraham in the Near East that was best suited for a later physical embodiment of Zarathustra? For one of the subsequent incarnations of Zarathustra is Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 36 ] In order for this second question to be raised, it was necessary first to raise and answer the question of the center—that center which finds expression in this blood. In the individuality of Zarathustra, we have this center, which incarnates itself into the blood of the Hebrew people. Tomorrow we will discuss why it had to be precisely this blood, this people, from which Zarathustra took his outer physical form.