The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] Before we move on to our topic today, I would like to add a brief comment to what I said yesterday. I pointed out how, in the processes of human development—particularly in the great, significant events of our existence—there is something to be seen that can be characteristically expressed through a language drawn from the processes of the cosmos. I mentioned how impossible it is to clothe in ordinary words, clearly, distinctly, and also thoroughly, what needs to be said regarding the great mysteries.

[ 2 ] If we wish to characterize that significant process which we may call the interaction between the two great disciples of Zarathustra, between Hermes or Thoth and Moses, we can best do so by presenting it as the repetition of a great cosmic process, whereby we must, however, understand the latter in such a way that it appears to us in the sense of occult wisdom, in the sense of the secret science. To first bring this cosmic process before us, let us repeatedly look back to that time when our Earth separated from its Sun, when both, so to speak, continued their own lives in the cosmos with an independent center. We can imagine this process by conceiving the entire substance of the Earth and the Sun in the distant past as a single whole, as it were a great cosmic body, and that these two separated in the distant past. However, we must always bear in mind that in doing so we are disregarding other cosmic processes that occurred in parallel with the separation of the Sun and the Earth, such as the formation of the other planets in our solar system. For our purposes, we can initially disregard the timing of these other separations and say: A separation thus took place in such a way that the Sun formed one center and the Earth the other.

[ 3 ] When we now consider this moment of the Earth’s separation from the Sun, we must first take into account that we are looking back to times when what is now called the “Earth” still contained within itself, in its own bosom, the substance of what is now our Moon, so that, as it were, Earth, Moon, and Sun stood opposite one another. All the spiritual and physical forces that existed prior to this separation split in such a way that, as it were, the coarser element—the coarser, denser forces—went with the Earth, while the finer, higher, spiritual-etheric forces went with the Sun. Now we must imagine that for a long time the Earth and the Sun underwent their evolutionary development separately from one another, that initially everything emanating from the Sun toward the Earth was of a completely different nature than, for example, those effects which today are active from the Sun down upon the Earth. Here we first have a kind of earthly existence, an earthly life, which proves to be, so to speak, an inner, closed earthly life that receives little from the solar life—from that which radiates from the Sun to the Earth, both spiritually and, in its expression, physically.

[ 4 ] In this early period of the separation of the Sun and the Earth, the Earth was, so to speak, heading toward a state of drying up, withering away, and mummification. And if the Earth had continued to keep the Moon within its bosom, the life that exists on Earth today would never have been possible. While the Earth still contained the Moon within itself, the life of the Sun could not prove fully effective; it could do so only later, after the Earth had separated from itself that which is today the Moon, and in doing so had separated from itself the spiritual beings connected with the Moon, just as the substance of the Moon had been separated from the Earth.

[ 5 ] But there is something else connected with this separation of the Moon from the Earth. We must be clear that everything we today call life on our Earth has developed slowly and gradually. And in spiritual science, we also describe the successive states as they took shape and unfolded, which made life on Earth possible. First we have the ancient Saturn existence, then the ancient Sun existence, the ancient Moon existence, and finally our Earth existence. So what we call the separation from the Sun, or the Earth’s prior union with the Sun, was preceded by other developmental processes of a completely different nature—namely the Saturn, Sun, and Moon phases—from which our Earth phase then developed. And when the Earth begins in its present form, it is still connected to the substance of all the planets belonging to our solar system, which only later differentiate themselves. This differentiation is a result of forces that were at work during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages.

[ 6 ] We now know that during the Saturn era, matter did not exist in the same configuration as it does today. Solid, liquid, or aqueous bodies—and even gaseous, vaporous, or air-like bodies—did not yet exist on ancient Saturn. In its entire structure, it was merely something that existed only as heat. A mere differentiation of heat, a mere heat structure, existed on this ancient Saturn. We can therefore say: Ancient Saturn had only a body of heat, and everything that developed on it developed within the element of heat. I need not repeat here that anyone who says such a thing knows full well how impossible it is for modern physics to conceive of a body consisting solely of heat, since “heat” is, after all, for modern physics merely a state, but not something substantial. But modern physics is of no concern to us here; what matters is solely the truth.

[ 7 ] Now the development proceeds from Saturn’s heat body to the later state of the ancient Sun. As described in *Outlines of Esoteric Science*, Saturn’s heat body condenses, so to speak. Part of the heat naturally remains; but the heat body condenses in part into the gaseous, air-like state of the Sun. However, this is not only associated with a condensation but also with a rarefaction; an ascent toward light also takes place in the process. We can therefore say: When we move from the heat state of the ancient Saturn to the solar state, we arrive at a celestial body that contains within itself air, heat, and light.

[ 8 ] And when we then move on from the Sun to the ancient lunar state that preceded our Earthly state, we find that a process of condensation occurs once again; we now find not only a gaseous or air-like state, but also, alongside it, a watery state. But on the other hand, so to speak toward spiritualization, toward etherization, a change has also taken place. We see that not only is light present during the lunar state, but also what is called the sound ether, which is identical to today’s chemical ether. What is referred to here as the sound ether is not the same as what we physically call sound or tone. The latter is merely a reflection of what the Hellesian faculty perceives as the harmony of the spheres, as an ethereal tone that weaves and lives through the world. We are therefore speaking of something far more spiritual, of something far more ethereal, when we speak of this ether and this sound itself.

[ 9 ] Then we move from the old lunar state to the earthly state. This is where the process of condensation into solid matter takes place. Solid bodies such as those found on Earth did not exist on the old Moon. This is a state that has only formed on Earth. So now on Earth we have heat, gaseous or airy substances, watery or liquid substances, and solid bodies; and on the other hand, we have light ether, sound ether, and then life ether. This is what development on Earth has brought about. So on Earth we have seven states of an elemental nature, whereas on the ancient Saturn we have only one single, intermediate state: the state of heat. Therefore, we must imagine our Earth, as it emerges from the cosmic darkness at the beginning of its present existence—where it was still united with the Sun and also with the other planets—as weaving and living within these seven elemental states. But with the separation from the Sun, something very remarkable occurs.

[ 10 ] In today’s external life, as it manifests itself through the forces radiating from the Sun to the Earth, there is indeed warmth and light; but these forces, which belong to the perceptible sensory world and fall within the entire realm of sensory perception, do not include the expressions, the manifestations, of the ether of sound and the ether of life. This is also why what we call the effects of the sound ether manifest only in chemical compositions and decompositions—that is, in the mutual relationships of material existence. And what we call the effect of the life ether, as it streams in from the sun, cannot be directly perceived by human beings in the same way that light becomes immediately perceptible to them when they distinguish between light and darkness through sensory perception. Life is perceived in its effects within living beings, but the in-streaming life-ether is not directly perceived. Therefore, science is compelled to say that life as such is a mystery to it. - Thus we find that the two highest forms of etheric manifestations, the life-ether and the tone-ether, although they emanate from the sun and belong to the finest of what emanates from the sun, are not immediately manifest to earthly existence. Here we have something that, although it radiates down from the sun, is hidden from ordinary perception. For everything that lives in the sound ether and life ether, something of a human inner nature becomes perceptible on Earth, even under present-day conditions. It is not the immediate effects of life and the harmony of the spheres that become perceptible on Earth, but rather that which works within the entire constitution of the human being.

[ 11 ] Now, the easiest way for me to describe this to you is by referring once again to the development that humanity has undergone on Earth. We know that in ancient times, extending into the Atlantean epoch, human beings were endowed with a direct clairvoyance through which they could perceive not only a sensory world as we do today, but also the spiritual background of sensory existence. How was this possible? It was possible because, for people in those ancient times, there existed an intermediate state—a state between what we today call our waking consciousness, from the moment of waking until falling asleep, and what we call the state of sleep. In the waking state, a person perceives physical-sensory things; in the sleeping state, he—or the majority of people—perceives nothing at all today, for he merely lives. If, however, you were to investigate this life of the human being during the sleeping state through clairvoyance, you would make strange discoveries—strange, that is, only to the person who views the world from the outside.

[ 12 ] During sleep, as we know, the human astral body and the ego are outside the physical and etheric bodies. Now I have repeatedly pointed out that one should not imagine that the astral body and the I, which are outside the physical and etheric bodies at night, simply float very close to the physical body, like a cloud of mist, as is commonly said. What one might perceive as such a cloud of mist, for example, in the state of lower astral clairvoyance—and what we call the astral body—is merely the crudest beginning of what the human being constitutes during the state of sleep. And if one were to regard this cloud near the physical and etheric bodies as the only thing, one would thereby only prove that one is proceeding from the lowest forms of astral clairvoyance. What the human being actually is during sleep is far more extensive. In fact, at the moment of falling asleep, the inner forces in the astral body and in the I begin to expand throughout the entire solar system; they become a part of the entire solar system. From all directions, the human being draws into his astral body and into his ego the forces to strengthen this life while in the state of sleep, only to contract again upon waking within the narrower confines of his skin and to incorporate into it what he has drawn out during the night from the entire expanse of the solar system. This is why medieval occultists also called this spiritual body of the human being the “astral” body, because it is connected to the starry worlds and draws its forces from them. Thus we can say: During the night’s sleep, the human being is indeed extended throughout the entire solar system.

[ 13 ] What, then, permeates our astral body during sleep? When we are outside our physical body at night, our astral body is permeated and interwoven with the harmonies of the spheres—with that which can otherwise only spread through the ether, through the ether of sound. Just as on a metal plate sprinkled with a certain kind of dust, the vibrations that pulse through the air when one strokes the plate with a violin bow continue to pulse within this dust and produce the familiar Chladni figures, so too do the harmonies of the spheres vibrate and pulse through the human being during the night, restoring order to what the human being has thrown into disorder during the day through external sensory perceptions. And whatever weaves through and lives within the life-ether also pulses through us during sleep; only, the human being has no perception of this inner life of his sheaths when he is separated from the physical and etheric bodies. In the normal state, a person possesses perception only when they re-enter the physical and etheric bodies and use the outer organs of the etheric body for thinking and the outer organs of the physical body for sensory perception.

[ 14 ] But in ancient times, there were indeed intermediate states between waking and sleeping that today can only be induced in an abnormal way and, due to the danger involved, should not be induced at all in ordinary life. In Atlantean times, however, these perceptual abilities were normally developed; there were intermediate states between waking and sleeping. This enabled human beings to immerse themselves in what lived and wove within the harmony of the spheres and in the life ether. In other words: In ancient times—even though, in earthly effects, the harmony of the spheres and life manifest only in the outer beings of love—human beings could perceive, through the clairvoyance of old, what the sun radiated to them as the harmony of the spheres and as the life pulsing through space.

[ 15 ] This ability gradually ceased. The door to these perceptions closed as human beings lost their ancient clairvoyance. And with that, something else gradually took its place: the inner power of knowledge, the inner power of insight. It was only through this that human beings learned to reflect inwardly, to think inwardly. Everything we today call our reflection on the things of the physical world in our waking life—that is, our actual inner life—developed only with the fading of the old clairvoyance. Such an inner life as human beings have today—one that unfolds in feelings, sensations, thoughts, and ideas, and which essentially constitutes the creative aspect of our culture—human beings did not yet possess in the early Atlantean times. They lived in the intermediate states between waking and sleeping, immersed in a spiritual world, and they perceived the sensory world as if through a fog; in any case, it was completely removed from their understanding, from the inner reflections of outer life. — Outer life thus rises, while the old clairvoyance gradually disappears.

[ 16 ] Thus we can say: Something developed within us that is a faint reflection of what we call the harmony of the spheres and the effect of the life ether. But to the same extent that human beings felt inwardly fulfilled with sensations and perceptions that the outer world repeated to them and that shaped their present inner life, to that same extent did the music of the spheres fade for them. And to the same extent that human beings felt themselves to be I-beings, the perception of the divine life-ether pulsing through the world faded for them. Human beings had to pay for their present condition by losing certain aspects of external life. Thus, as an earthly being, humanity felt within itself the life that it could no longer perceive as radiating directly from the sun; and today it has only a faint reflection of the mighty cosmic life, of the music of the spheres and the life-ether, in its inner life. ‘For human cognition, too, what developed for the Earth itself unfolded as a repetition. The Earth, having separated from the Sun, would have become self-contained and hardened if it had remained connected to all the substantialities from which it had separated itself from the Sun. At first, the Sun could not intervene with its effects in the Earth’s becoming, and this lasted until the separation of the Moon from the Earth took place. Therefore, in what the Earth cast out of itself as the Moon, we must see a rejection of all those substantialities that made it impossible for the Earth to receive the direct effects of the Sun. And by setting the Moon apart from itself, it thereby truly opened its being and its essence to the influences and effects of the Sun from which it had separated, as it were, meeting the Sun halfway. Contrary to the direction in which the Earth had separated itself from the Sun, it sent forth a part of its own being, the Moon, which then reflected back the effect of the Earth’s solar being, just as it outwardly reflects the light. In the separation of the Moon from the Earth, therefore, lies something of the utmost significance: the Earth’s opening itself to the effects of the Sun.

[ 17 ] What occurred on a cosmic scale was bound to happen—in a repetitive cycle—in human life as well. The Earth had long since opened itself to the Sun’s influence; only then had the right moment arrived for humanity to shield itself from the Sun’s direct effects. The direct effects of the sun were still present in the clairvoyance of the Atlanteans; thus the Atlanteans received what radiated from the sun. And just as a time came for the Earth when it began to harden, so a time came for humanity when it withdrew, developed an inner life, and could no longer open itself to the sun’s influence. And this process of the formation of an inner life, in which human beings could not open themselves to the sun and could only develop within themselves what was a faint reflection of the effects of the ether of life, the ether of sound, and the harmony of the spheres—this period lasted a long time, extending into the post-Atlantean era.

[ 18 ] Thus, in the early stages of Atlantean development, there was a direct perception of the sun’s effects. Then people closed themselves off from these effects. And when these effects could no longer penetrate into human beings, while the inner life of humanity was flourishing more and more, it was only the sacred mysteries that led their adherents to such a development of spiritual powers that human beings could, so to speak, contrary to normal earthly conditions, directly perceive the effects of the sun through what might be called yoga. Thus, in the second half of the Atlantean era, sites rightly called oracles developed within the land of Atlantis, where, amidst a humanity that could no longer normally perceive the direct effects of the tone-ether and the life-ether, such disciples and adherents of sacred wisdom were trained who, by initially suppressing mere sensory perception, were able to perceive the revelations of the sound ether and the life ether. And this possibility was preserved for the true centers of esoteric science in the post-Atlantean era. Indeed, it has remained so strong that even external science, though it does not understand it, has preserved a tradition from the school of Pythagoras to the effect that one can hear the harmonies of the spheres. Only external science immediately transforms something like the harmony of the spheres into an abstraction—which it was not—and fails to conceive of it as what it actually is. For in reality, in the Pythagorean schools, the ability to perceive the harmony of the spheres was understood as the actual reopening of the human being to the sound ether, the harmony of the spheres, and the real divine life ether.

[ 19 ] Now, it was precisely the one who most powerfully, most magnificently pointed out that behind the sun’s activity—as it shines down upon the earth with its light and warmth—there is something else, something that is a power of sound, indeed a power of life, which manifests itself in human inner life only as a faint reflection: Zarathustra or Zoroaster. And if we wish to translate his teaching into a language drawn from our modern vocabulary, we can say that he taught his disciples the following: When you look up at the sun, you perceive the beneficial warmth and the beneficial light that shines upon the earth; but when you develop higher faculties, when you develop spiritual perception, you can perceive the solar being that lies behind the physical life of the sun; and then you perceive sound effects and, within the sound effects, the meaning of life! - What was next to be perceived as the spiritual reality behind the physical effects of the sun, Zarathustra described to his disciples as Ormuzd, as Ahura Mazdao, as the Great Aura of the Sun. We will therefore find it understandable that in translation the word Ahura Mazdao can also be called “great wisdom,” in contrast to what human beings today develop within themselves as “small wisdom.” Great wisdom is that which they perceive when they perceive the spirituality of the sun, the great solar aura.

[ 20 ] Thus, looking back on earlier stages of human development, a poet was able to point to what is a truth for the spiritual researcher and say:

“The sun resounds in the ancient way
In the spheres of the brotherhood, a contest of song,
And its prescribed journey
It completes with a thunderous stride.”

[ 21 ] Aesthetes will, of course, regard this as something contrived. They love it when people say it is poetic license for Goethe to make the sun “sound.” They have no idea what a poet in Goethe’s sense is—one who describes only realities—when he says: “The sun sounds in the old way,” that is, in the way that ancient humanity knew it. For even today it still sounds that way to those who are initiated.

[ 22 ] Zoroaster had pointed this out to his disciples. Naturally, he had drawn the attention of two of his disciples in particular to this momentous fact—those whom we might describe as his closest disciples, who later appeared in their reincarnations as Hermes and Moses. But in two very different ways, he pointed them toward what lies behind the luminous body of the sun. He pointed this out to Hermes in such a way that the latter remained within what comes directly from the sun. And he inspired Moses in such a way that he retained, as in a memory, what the mystery of solar wisdom is.

[ 23 ] If we now imagine, in the spirit of “esoteric science,” the Earth after its “separation from the Sun,” the withdrawal of the Moon’s forces from the Earth, and all of this following the Earth’s opening up toward the Sun, then we have in Venus and Mercury that which stands right in the middle between the Earth and the Sun. And if we now divide the entire space between the Sun and the Earth into three equal parts, we can say: The Earth has separated from the Sun; it has itself sent the Moon toward the Sun. Venus and Mercury then split off from the Sun and moved toward the Earth. So that in Venus and Mercury we have something that comes from the Sun toward the Earth, and in the Moon something that moves toward the Sun.

[ 24 ] Just as cosmic conditions take shape, so too do the conditions of human development, as if in a reflection. If we regard the revelations of Zarathustra as solar wisdom, which he imparted on the one hand to Hermes and on the other to Moses, then what lived within Hermes—since he possessed the astral body of Zarathustra within himself—was the solar wisdom radiating from Zarathustra; and what lived in Moses was, so to speak, enclosed like a self-contained planet of wisdom that first had to develop in opposition to what radiated directly from the Sun. Just as the Earth’s activity opened itself to the Sun’s activity through the departure of the Moon, so did the wisdom of Moses open itself to the wisdom radiating directly from Zarathustra, the solar wisdom. And these two—the earthly wisdom of Moses and the solar wisdom of Zarathustra in Hermes—converged in Egypt, where the Moses tradition meets the Hermes tradition. So that we must understand what Moses developed out of himself—what he, as if receiving it from a distance from Zarathustra, awakened within himself, radiated, and handed down to his people—as analogous to the ejection of the Earth.

[ 25 ] What Moses imparted as wisdom to his people can also be referred to by the name that encapsulates the wisdom of Moses: the wisdom of Yahweh or Jehovah. For if we understand the name Yahweh or Jehovah correctly, it serves as a summary of the entire wisdom of Moses. But if we understand it this way, it also becomes clear to us why the ancient traditions call Yahweh or Jehovah a lunar deity. You will find this fact mentioned in many writings, but you can only grasp the reason for it once you allow these deep connections to sink in. Just as the Earth expelled what it contained within itself as the Moon and sent it toward the Sun, so too did the Earth-wisdom of Moses have to go forth toward Hermes, who possessed the direct wisdom of Zarathustra in the astral body sacrificed by Zarathustra, and then develop itself. We have already described how, following this encounter with Hermes, the Moses-principle developed through to the Davidic age, and how a different, new Hermetic or Mercurial principle appears in David, the royal warrior and divine singer of the Hebrew people. And we have seen how the Moses-tradition draws closer to the solar element, as it recently came into contact during the Babylonian captivity with the radiant solar wisdom, because Zarathustra, under the name Zarathas or Nazarathos, was himself the teacher of the Hebrew initiates during the Babylonian captivity. Thus, in the wisdom of Moses, we see something that repeats the entire cosmic process of the Earth’s separation from the Sun and what subsequently happened to the Earth.

[ 26 ] Such connections appeared as something that filled the ancient sages of the Hebrew people—and all those who sensed them—with the deepest reverence. They felt something like direct revelations shining toward them from the realms of the cosmos and from the very fabric of existence itself. And a figure such as Moses appeared to them as a messenger of the cosmic powers themselves. They felt it. And we must empathize with this if we truly wish to understand the ancient times; otherwise, all understanding remains merely an empty abstraction.

[ 27 ] The point is that what was thus radiated by Zarathustra and poured out upon posterity through Hermes and Moses was able to continue developing in such a way that it could reappear on a higher plane in a different form, in a higher form of development. For this to happen, it was necessary that Zarathustra himself—the individuality who had previously sacrificed only the astral body and the etheric body—be able to appear on Earth in a physical body in order to sacrifice that as well. This is a process of stages, a beautiful process of stages. First, in ancient times, Zarathustra lived in his own way and gave the impulse for post-Atlantean development in the ancient Persian, in the Iranian culture. Then he surrendered his astral body to set the stage for the next culture through Hermes, and he surrendered his etheric body to Moses. Thus he had sacrificed two of his sheaths. Now he also had to be given the opportunity to sacrifice his physical body. For the great mystery of human development required that the three bodies of a single being be sacrificed. For Hermes, Zarathustra had sacrificed his astral body; for Moses, his etheric body. The third thing that still lay before him was the sacrifice of the physical body. This required special arrangements; for this, Zarathustra’s physical body first had to be prepared in a special way. And we already pointed out yesterday how, through the peculiar life of the Hebrew people over generations, that physical body was prepared, which could then be sacrificed by Zarathustra as his third great sacrifice. For this, it was necessary that within the Hebrew people, everything that was otherwise direct external spiritual perception—that is, astral vision—which had fallen into decay among the Turanian peoples, become an inner reality.

[ 28 ] This is the secret of the Hebrew people. Whereas among the Turanian peoples the powers—which were legacies from ancient times— served to develop external clairvoyant organs, among the Hebrew people they radiated inward and organized the inner physicality, so that the Hebrew people were destined to feel and perceive inwardly what had otherwise been seen during the Atlantean era, spread out across the sensory space behind the individual sensory objects. Yahweh or Jehovah, as the Hebrew people consciously pronounce him, is the “Great Spirit” condensed into a single point, who appeared to the ancient clairvoyance behind all things and beings. It is also suggested to us that the progenitor of this ancient Hebrew people received this inner organization in a very special way, precisely as a progenitor.

[ 29 ] I would like to note here something I have observed on many occasions: that myths and legends, which vividly recount the events that took place in ancient times, are truer and more accurate than modern anthropological research, which pieces together a picture of the world’s origins from today’s excavations and isolated fragments of monuments. In most cases, the ancient legends are corroborated by what we call spiritual scientific research. I say “in most” and not “in all” because I have not investigated it, although it is very likely the case wherever there are genuine ancient legends. Thus, when we trace the origins of the Hebrew people, they do not lead us back to what modern anthropological research assumes, but rather lead us back to a progenitor of whom the Bible tells us. This Abraham or Abram is a real figure, and what the Talmudic legend tells of this progenitor is entirely true.

[ 30 ] In this legend, Abraham’s father is described as a general under that legendary yet historical figure known in the Bible as “Nimrod.” And based on a dream, the son of his general is foretold to Nimrod by those who understand the signs of the times as a being who will dethrone many kings and rulers. Nimrod fears this and orders that the son of his general be killed. This is what the legend tells us; this is what occult research confirms. Abraham’s father makes an excuse and presents a stranger’s child to Nimrod. His own child, however—Abraham—is raised in a cave. And the fact that Abraham is truly the first to develop, through those powers that were otherwise used for external clairvoyant abilities, now develops within that organizational power intended to lead to inner God-consciousness—this reversal of the entire sum of forces is indicated in the legend by the fact that during the three years he is raised in the cave, the child, by God’s grace, suckles milk from his own right index finger. This self-nourishment, the integration of the forces that previously gave rise to the old clairvoyance into the inner organization of the human being, is wonderfully characterized for us in the progenitor of the Hebrew people, in Abraham. Such legends, when one learns their true basis, have such a powerful effect on us that we say to ourselves: We understand that the ancient narrators could not express what lies behind the legends in any other way than through images. But these images were capable of evoking, if not consciousness, then at least feelings for the great facts. And that was sufficient for the ancient times.

[ 31 ] Thus Abraham is the one who first developed the inner reflection of divine wisdom—divine insight—in such a truly human way as human thinking about the divine. Abram, or Abraham as he was later called, did indeed—as occult research always emphasizes—have a physical constitution different from that of all the other people living around him. The people around him at that time were not, in their constitution, such that they could have developed inner thinking through a special instrument. They could develop thinking when they became free of the body, when they developed powers, so to speak, in their etheric body; but while they were still in the physical body, they had not yet developed the instrument of thinking. Abraham is indeed the first to have developed the physical instrument of thinking in an exceptional manner. Therefore, it is not without reason—though this, of course, must again be understood with the necessary grain of salt—that he is referred to as the inventor of arithmetic, the science of thought that relies in an exceptional way on the instrument of the physical body. Arithmetic is something that, in its form and because of its inner certainty, comes close to what can be known in the Hellenic sense. But arithmetic is dependent on a physical organ.

[ 32 ] Thus we have here a profound inner connection between what external forces have hitherto used for clairvoyance and what an inner organ now uses for thinking. This is indicated by the fact that Abraham is identified as the inventor of arithmetic. We must therefore see in Abraham the personality who was the first to receive the physical organ of thought—that organ through which human beings, by means of their physical thinking, were able to rise to the concept of a God. In earlier times, human beings could only know something of God and divine existence through clairvoyant observation. All knowledge of God and divine existence that originated in ancient times stemmed from clairvoyant observation. To rise to the divine through thought required a physical instrument; this was first implanted in Abraham. And since this involves a physical organ, the entire relationship to the objective world and to the subjective being of the human being—as perceived through this thought of God, which was grasped by a physical instrument—was different from what it had been in the past.

[ 33 ] In the past, the secret schools had grasped the concept of God within divine wisdom, and they were able to pass it on to those who were also capable of doing so, provided they had reached a stage where they could have perceptions in the etheric body, independent of the organs of the physical body. But if that which is a physical instrument is to pass on to another, there is only one means: heredity in the physical organization. So what was most important, most essential for Abraham—the physical organ—had to be passed on through physical heredity from generation to generation if it was to be preserved on Earth, precisely because it was a physical organ. Thus we understand that heredity within the people—the passing down, so to speak, of this physical predisposition through the blood of the generations—is of such great importance to the Hebrew people.

[ 34 ] But what was initially a physical predisposition in Abraham—namely, the formation and crystallization of a physical organ for perceiving the divine—first had to take root. As it was passed down from generation to generation, it penetrated ever more deeply into the human being and grasped it ever more deeply, the deeper it was passed down. We can therefore say: What Abraham had received as the mission of the Hebrew people had to be perfected; as it passed from person to person through heredity, it had to become more perfect in its further development. But what was a physical organ could only become more and more perfect through heredity.

[ 35 ] If the being whom we first came to know as the individuality of Zarathustra was to have a physical body as perfect as possible—that is, a physical body that also possessed the organs capable of serving as instruments for grasping the idea of God within the physical human body—then what had been implanted in Abraham as a physical instrument had to be raised to the highest level. It had to become firmly established within, had to be passed down, and thus develop in such a way that it could become a proper body for Zarathustra, with all the qualities that Zarathustra needed in his physical body. But if the physical body of a human being is to become perfect in this way, if it is to become as useful as it needed to be for Zarathustra, then it was not enough for merely the physical body of the human being to become more perfect. It is, of course, impossible for the physical body alone, torn away from the whole human being, to become perfect. All three sheaths had to be perfected gradually through physical heredity. Whatever, therefore, could be given to the physical human being, the etheric human being, and the astral human being along the path of physical heredity, that had to be given to him in successive generations.

[ 36 ] There is a certain law governing development. We are familiar with this law as it pertains to the development of the individual human being and have described it on several occasions. We have shown how, in human beings, a particular phase of their development corresponds to the period from birth to the sixth or seventh year: the development of the physical body takes place during this time. The development of the etheric body occurs from the sixth or seventh year up to the fourteenth or fifteenth. From there on until the age of twenty-one or twenty-two, we then have the development of the astral body. This is, so to speak, the law, denoted by the number seven, governing the development of the individual human being. A similar law applies to the development of humanity’s outer sheaths through the generations, and we shall yet have to point out the deeper laws of this process. While the individual human being goes through a stage of development every seven years, developing their physical body up to the seventh year—which becomes more and more perfect during this time—the entire structure of the physical body, as it can perfect itself through the generations, is brought to a certain perfection over the course of seven generations. But heredity does not occur in such a way that it passes from one person to the next descendant, not directly from one generation to the next. The characteristics that matter cannot pass directly from father to son, or from mother to daughter, but only from father to grandson—that is, to the second generation—then to the fourth generation, and so on. Thus, heredity cannot manifest itself directly. We would have to deal with inheritance in terms of a sevenfold sequence across the generations; but since inheritance always skips a link, we are in reality dealing with a fourteenfold sequence.

[ 37 ] The physical constitution inherent in Abraham had reached its peak after fourteen generations. But if the etheric body and the astral body were also to be affected by this, then that development which continues for the individual human being from the seventh to the fourteenth year had to pass through a further seven or fourteen generations. And what for a human being is a development through the next seven years from the fourteenth onward—that had to pass through fourteen generations again. This means, therefore: What was predisposed in the progenitor Abraham as physical organization had to play itself out through three times seven or three times fourteen generations; then it was the case that it had taken hold of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. Through three times fourteen generations—that is, through forty-two generations—it is possible for a human being, through heredity in the generational line, to receive fully developed in the physical body, etheric body, and astral body that which Abraham received in its initial form.

[ 38 ] If we trace the line down from Abraham through three times fourteen generations, we arrive at a human body that is thoroughly permeated and imbued with what was present in its earliest form in Abraham. Only such a body could serve as the vessel Zarathustra needed for his incarnation. This is also what the writer of the Gospel of Matthew tells us. And in the genealogy he provides, he explicitly points out that he lists fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian Captivity, and fourteen from the Babylonian Captivity to Christ. Through these three sets of fourteen generations—with one always skipped—what was predisposed in Abraham for the mission of the Hebrew people has, in a certain sense, come to full development. There it is fully imprinted in the structure of the human being. From this, the body could be taken that Zarathustra needed to come into incarnation at the time when he was to open up something entirely new to humanity.

[ 39 ] Thus we see that the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew draws from a very special depth. But we must first understand such things. We must understand: What is told to us through these three sets of fourteen generations is meant to point us to how, in what could be passed down from Joseph to Jesus of Nazareth, the essence of what was present in the first seed with Abraham, what then radiated out to the entire Hebrew people and was then able to gather in that one instrument, in that one vessel—which was the vessel for Zarathustra—in which the Christ could be incarnated.