The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Sixth Lecture

[ 1 ] Anyone who picks up the Gospel of Luke and examines the chapter in which the lineage of the Jesus described there is traced back to earlier generations will readily see that the intention of the author of the Gospel of Luke is consistent with what was said here yesterday. The point yesterday was that, so to speak, just as a divine force-entity was to permeate the physical body and etheric body of the Solomonic Jesus, so too was a divine force-entity to permeate the astral body and the I of that personality whom we know as the Nathanic Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. And it is clearly stated in the Gospel of Luke: this divine power-being is to be what it is by virtue of the fact that, through all generations, the line of descent flows in a straight line from that stage of humanity where the human being had not yet entered into an earthly, physical-sensory incarnation for the first time within earthly existence. We see, after all, how the Gospel of Luke traces the lineage of its Jesus back through, let us say, generations, all the way to Adam, all the way to God. But this means nothing other than that, if we wish to find that principle in the astral body and in the I of the Nathanic Jesus, we must ascend to a state of the human being in which this human being had not yet been taken up by a physical-sensory earthly incarnation, in which he had not yet descended from the divine spiritual existence, but was still in the bosom of those spiritual spheres within which we can describe the human being as belonging to God, as a divine being. We must, in the spirit of the entire anthroposophical discourse, point to this point in the ancient Lemurian era and establish it as the time when the human being had not yet incarnated in the elements of earthly existence, but was still in a divine-spiritual sphere. The Gospel of Luke actually traces its Jesus back to those times when human beings were still of a divine nature and had not yet been affected by what we call the Luciferic influence.

[ 2 ] In fact, the mysteries that led their disciples to the initiation we described yesterday—the realization of the great secrets of cosmic space—sought to lead human beings beyond all that is earthly, or rather, beyond what human beings have become through the earthly realm. They sought to teach how one might view the world without relying on the tools humanity has possessed since the time when the Luciferic influence began to take effect. How does the universe appear to clairvoyant perception when human beings free themselves from perception through the physical and etheric bodies, free themselves from everything earthly that can approach them—that was initially the great question for the students of the mysteries. In such a state, the human being naturally existed before entering an earthly incarnation and before becoming the “earthly Adam,” to speak specifically in the sense of the Bible and the Gospel of Luke. Thus, there are only two ways through which the human being can become what makes him a divine-spiritual human being: One is the high initiation of the great mysteries; the other cannot be realized in any arbitrary earthly era, but existed at an elemental stage of human existence, before the descent of the divine human being in the Lemurian era into what the Bible calls the “earthly human being”; for “Adam” means “earthly human,” who is no longer of a divine-spiritual nature, but has clothed himself with the earthly elements.

[ 3 ] However, one thing might strike us when we express something like this. That is, after all, only seventy-seven—let’s say—generations or stages of existence are referred to as stages of inheritance. Even in the Gospel of Matthew, someone might find it striking that only forty-two generations are named from Abraham to Christ, and they might calculate that the number of years usually assumed for a generation would not be sufficient to go all the way back to Abraham. Anyone who would say that, however, would have to take into account that in the past, for the ancient times, for the patriarchal times from Solomon and David onward, longer periods were rightly assumed for the duration of a generation than in later times. If we wish to make even a reasonable sense of the historical data ourselves, we must not calculate for three generations—for example, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—what would now be the average for three generations, but rather we must set the duration for these three generations at approximately two hundred and fifteen years. This is also confirmed by occult research. The fact that the duration of a generation must be set longer for those ancient times than today becomes even clearer when looking at the generations from Adam down to Abraham. In the succession of generations from Abraham onward, anyone can see that the individual generations were set longer; for the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are always attributed a great age when they have a son who is an heir. And while we typically calculate thirty-three years for a generation today, those who wrote the Gospel of Matthew rightly calculated seventy-five to eighty years—and even longer—for a generation in ancient times. But we must emphasize that in the Gospel of Matthew, the reference to Abraham refers to individual people. However, individual people are no longer meant when we go back from Abraham and consider the names listed in the Gospel of Luke. Here we must certainly recall something that is true, even if it may seem unbelievable to people’s materialistic conceptions today.

[ 4 ] What we might today call our memory, our coherent consciousness—the recollection of the enduring aspects of our inner being—extends, for the average person, only as far back as the earliest years of childhood. When modern people look back on their lives, they will find that their memories break off somewhere. Some will remember more of their childhood, others less. But our memory today is entirely confined to the details of our individual lives; indeed, it does not even encompass our entire personal life up to the day of our birth. If we bring to mind what the soul capacities and the characteristics of human consciousness were like in ancient times, if we recall how, in the course of human evolution, we encounter periods in the past when a certain clairvoyant state was normal human consciousness, then we will no longer find it surprising that we can say of these relatively recent times—as spiritual research confirms—that the conditions of consciousness with regard to memory in ancient times were quite different from what they later became.

[ 5 ] So when we go back to the times described in the Bible as the time of Abraham, the whole state of mind is somewhat different from what it was later on, and memory, in particular, is different. And if we go back even further from Abraham to the Atlantean era, through the Atlantean era, we must say: Memory was something quite different back then. Above all, it was not merely a matter of recalling personal experiences from one’s own life, as is the case today, but rather of remembering, through one’s birth, what one’s father, grandfather, and so on had experienced. Memory was something that flowed through the blood across a series of generations, and only later was it condensed into specific periods and focused on the individual life.

[ 6 ] And when names from earlier times are used—the naming conventions of ancient times would require a special study today—what is meant by such a name is something entirely different from what we associate with a name today. And what modern philology has to say about this is really just amateurish nonsense. The use of names was quite different in the past. One could not have imagined at all that names could be linked to things or entities in such an external way as happens today. In ancient times, a name was something essential, something intrinsically connected to the being or thing, and was meant to express the inner character of the being through its sound. The name was meant to be an echo of the being in sound back then. Our present age has no concept of this at all, for otherwise books such as Fritz Manthner’s *Critique of Language* could not have come into being today; this work takes magnificent account of all recent research and all scholarly criticism of language in recent years, but it simply fails to address what constituted the essence of language in ancient times. In ancient times, the name was by no means applied to the individual human being in his personal life, but rather to that which was held together by memory, so that his name was used for as long as the memory lasted. Thus, for example, Noah is not a single individual, but the name Noah signifies that first a single individual remembers his own life and then, through birth, the life of his father, his grandfather, and so on, as long as memory endured. As far as the thread of memory reached, the same name was used for such a succession of people. Likewise, names such as Adam, Seth, or Enoch are names of this kind, with which one summarized as much about persons as was possible to hold together with memory in retrospect. So when it is said of ancient times that someone was named Enoch, this means: A new thread of memory arose in a personality who was the son of a previously named personality; he no longer remembered the earlier personalities. But this new thread of memory did not cease with the death of this first personality named Enoch, but it was passed down from father to son, to grandson, and so on, until a new thread of memory arose again. And as long as this memory thread persisted, the same name was used. Thus, various personalities are collectively designated by it in the succession of generations, for example, when speaking of Adam.

[ 7 ] In this sense, the Gospel of Luke naturally uses names; for it seeks to convey that we must trace the power-presence of divine-spiritual existence—which was immersed into the I and the astral body of the Nathanic Jesus—all the way back to where the human being first ascended into an earthly incarnation. Thus, in the Gospel of Luke, we first have names for the individual personalities. But if we go back beyond Abraham, we enter a time when memory extends further, and we truly group together under a single name that which is held together by memory through several personalities, as it were, as a single “I.”

[ 8 ] This will make it easier for you to truly view the seventy-seven names listed in the Gospel of Luke as spanning very long periods of time, indeed all the way back to when the being we can describe as the divine-spiritual being of the human being first incarnated in a physical, sensory human body. The other thing that must be sought in this is this: whoever, in the great Mysteries, attained through the seventy-seven stages the purification of their soul from everything that humanity had absorbed in earthly existence, thereby attained that state which today is only possible when a human being becomes free of the physical body and can live in the astral body and the I. There he can pour himself out over that from which the Earth itself arose, over the surrounding cosmos, over our entire cosmic system. And that is how it should be. Then he has attained that divine-spiritual power-being which entered into the astral body and the I of the Nathanic Jesus.

[ 9 ] The Nathanic Jesus was meant to represent what humanity derives not from earthly but from heavenly conditions. Thus the Gospel of Luke describes to us the divine-spiritual being that permeated and imbued the astral body and I of the Luke Jesus. And the Gospel of Matthew describes that divine-spiritual power-being which, on the one hand, worked in Abraham so that the inner organ for Yahweh-consciousness might arise. And on the other hand, it is the same force-entity that worked through forty-two generations in the physical body and etheric body, and which there synthesizes a line of inheritance through the forty-two generations.

[ 10 ] I mentioned yesterday that these teachings—specifically the teachings of the Gospel of Matthew regarding the origin of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth—were upheld and understood in those communities that we might call the “Therapists and Essenes,” and that Jeshu ben Pandira acted as a great teacher among the Therapeuts and Essenes, whose task was to prepare the way for the age of Christ Jesus. He had to prepare at least a few people for the fact that, upon the passing of a certain point in time—namely, forty-two generations after Abraham—the Hebrew people would, so to speak, be ready for the Zarathustra Individuality to incarnate in a descendant of the line of Abraham, in a descendant of the Solomonic line of the House of David. This was taught in advance. Of course, this involved mystical experience at that time. In those days, this was not only taught in the Essene schools, but there were also pupils in the Essene schools who actually passed through the forty-two stages, so that they could see clairvoyantly what that Being was like who had descended through the forty-two stages. The world was to be enlightened about this through appropriate teachings. It was the Essene’s task to ensure that at least some people would have an understanding of what the Christ would be.

[ 11 ] We have already mentioned the peculiar path initially taken by that human individuality which incarnated in the blood whose composition is described in the Gospel of Matthew. We know that this original great teacher, known by the name of Zarathustra or Zoroaster, taught in the East what we have sufficiently considered, which made him particularly suited for this incarnation. We know that he initiated the Egyptian Hermes culture by sacrificing his astral body for this purpose, which was then imprinted upon Hermes. We also know that he sacrificed his etheric body of that time, which was preserved for Moses, and that Moses possessed within himself the etheric body of Zarathustra for his cultural creation. Zarathustra himself was later able to incarnate further in other astral and etheric bodies. Of particular interest to us is the incarnation of Zarathustra in the 6th century B.C. as Zarathas or Nazarathos in ancient Chaldea, where he had as his disciples the Chaldean sages and magicians, and where, in particular, the wisest of the Hebrew secret disciples came into contact with him during the Babylonian captivity. And for the entire six centuries that followed, the Chaldean secret schools were imbued with the traditions, ceremonies, and cults that originated with Zarathustra in the person of Zarathas or Nazarathos. And all the generations of Chaldean, Babylonian, Assyrian, and so on, secret students who lived in those regions of Asia held the name of their great Master, Zarathustra—under the variant forms Zarathas or Nazarathos—in the highest esteem. And they eagerly awaited the next incarnation of their great teacher and leader, for they knew that he would reappear after six hundred years. The secret of this reappearance was known to them; it lived, so to speak, as something that shone upon them from the future.

[ 12 ] And as the time drew near when the blood for the new incarnation of Zarathustra was ready, the three emissaries, the three wise magi from the East, set out. They knew that the revered name of Zarathustra itself, like their star, would guide them to the place where the reincarnation of Zarathustra was to take place. It was the essence of the great teacher himself that, as the “star,” led the three magi to the birthplace of Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. - This, too, can be substantiated philologically even from an external perspective, namely that the word “star” was indeed used in ancient times as a name for human individualities. Not only does spiritual research, drawing on its sources, tell us more clearly than anything else that at that time the three Magi followed the Star of Zoroaster, the “Golden Star” Zoroaster, that it led them to where he wished to reincarnate, but also from the use of the word “star” for high human individualities—as I said, a fact that can also be substantiated philologically—it might occur to many that the star that guided the Magi is to be understood as Zarathustra himself.

[ 13 ] Six centuries before our era, the Magi from the East thus encountered that individual who incarnated as the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. And Zarathustra himself led the Magi there; they followed in his footsteps. For it was, so to speak, the pull of Zarathustra—the star guiding the Magi as it moved toward Palestine—that led the Magi on their journey from the Eastern, Chaldean mysteries to Palestine, where Zarathustra was preparing for his next incarnation.

[ 14 ] This mystery of the future incarnation of Zarathustra, Zarathas, or Nazarathos was also known in the Chaldean mysteries. But the mystery of the blood of the Hebrew people, which was to be suitable, when the appropriate time had come, for the new physical embodiment of Zarathustra—this was taught by those who, in the Essene mysteries, were, so to speak, raised up through the forty-two steps.

[ 15 ] So, essentially, there were two kinds of people who initially knew something about the mystery of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. From the Zarathustra side, where reference was made to the individuality that was to incarnate in Jewish blood, the Chaldean initiates knew of it; from the blood side, the outer side, the side of the body, the Essenes knew of it. It was thus already a teaching that had been taught for about a hundred or more years in the Essene schools, the teaching of this coming of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, that Jesus who, in his entirety, was to fulfill all the conditions of which I have spoken, but then also others that we might characterize in the following way.

[ 16 ] After a long time, following many purifications and exercises of the soul, such an Essene disciple was led up through the forty-two stages to, so to speak, behold the mysteries of the physical body and the etheric body. The one who was to be born there, who was to incarnate into this bloodline, descended from above; he possessed the abilities that the Essene disciple could attain only after long and arduous trials through the forty-two stages. Of the one who descended, one had to say: He possessed from the outset the abilities to bring such potential to fruition. — They were born with him, it was said in the Essene communities. But in essence, what was cultivated in the Essene communities in terms of exercises and purifications of the soul was the continuation of a kind of secret training that had also existed within Judaism since time immemorial.

[ 17 ] There has always been in Judaism what was known as Naziritehood. This consisted of individual people—even before the emergence of the Therapeutae and Essenes—applying very specific methods of spiritual and physical development to themselves. Specifically, the Nazirites employed a method consisting of a certain diet, which is still useful in some respects today if a person wishes to advance more rapidly in their spiritual development than is otherwise possible. In particular, they completely abstained from meat and wine. In doing so, they created the possibility of a certain relief, because meat can indeed hinder the development of the spiritually striving individual. It is indeed true—and this is not meant as propaganda for vegetarianism—that abstaining from meat makes everything easier. When meat is eliminated from the diet, a person can become more resilient in their soul and prove stronger in overcoming the resistances and obstacles that arise from the physical and etheric bodies. The person then becomes more productive and capable of enduring. But of course, this is not achieved merely by abstaining from meat, but above all by strengthening one’s soul. If one merely abstains from meat, one merely alters one’s physical body; and if what should be present on the soul side—and should permeate the body—is lacking, then abstaining from meat serves no particular purpose.

[ 18 ] So this Nazirite practice existed. The Essenes, however, continued it under much stricter rules; they added entirely different elements to it. They incorporated everything I told you about yesterday and the day before. In particular, they observed the strictest abstinence from meat. Through this, it was achieved relatively quickly that such people learned to expand their memory and look back over forty-two generations, that they learned to look into the mysteries of the Akashic Records. They became what one might call a bud on a branch, a bud on a tree, on a plant that winds its way through many generations. They were not merely something detached from the tree of humanity; they felt the threads that bound them to the tree of the rest of humanity. They were different from those who detached themselves from the trunk and whose memory was limited to the individual personality. Such people were now also referred to within the Essene communities with a word intended to express “a living branch,” not a severed branch. These were people who felt themselves part of the succession of generations, who did not feel cut off from the tree of humanity. The disciples who, within Essene teachings, specifically followed this path—those who had passed through the forty-two stages—were called Nezer.

[ 19 ] Even among this class of Nezer, the one I mentioned yesterday as a teacher within the Essene communities had a faithful, special disciple: Jesus, son of Pandira. For this Jeshu ben Pandira, who is quite well known to occultists, had five disciples, each of whom took on a particular branch of Jeshu ben Pandira’s great teaching and then continued it on his own. These five disciples of Jeshu ben Pandira bore the following names: Mathai, Nakai; the third disciple, because he was specifically from the Nezer class, was actually named Nezer; then Boni and Thona. These five disciples or followers of Jeshu ben Pandira, who a century before our era suffered a martyr’s death for blasphemy and heresy in the manner already described, carried on, so to speak, the great, comprehensive teaching of Jeshu ben Pandira in five different branches. In particular—as spiritual scientific research teaches—after the death of Jeshu ben Pandira, the teaching regarding the preparation of the blood for the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew who was to appear was carried on by the disciple Mathai. And that teaching regarding the inner state of the soul, which was connected with the ancient Nazirite tradition but also with the more recent Nezerite tradition, was continued by the other great disciple of Jeshu ben Pandira, Nezer. And Nezer was specifically chosen to found a small colony. There were quite a number of such Essene colonies in Palestine, and in each one a particular branch of Essenism was cultivated. The Nezerite tradition, which the disciple Nezer was particularly charged with continuing, was to be cultivated above all in that colony which led a mysterious existence and was essentially just a small settlement at that time—the colony that later received the name Nazareth in the Bible. There in Nazareth—Nezereth—was an Essene colony established by Nezer, the disciple of Jeshu ben Pandira. There were people—living in rather strict secrecy—who upheld the ancient Nazirite tradition. Therefore, after those other events had taken place, which I still have to speak of, following the migration to Egypt and the return from there, there was nothing more natural for the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew than that he be brought into the atmosphere of this Nezer tradition. This is also hinted at by the corresponding passage in the Gospel of Matthew following the return from Egypt: He was brought to the town of Nazareth, “that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled: ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’” (Matt. 2:23). - This has been translated in a variety of ways, because the translators did not fully grasp the meaning and no one really knew what was intended. This is what it meant: that there was an Essene colony here, where Jesus was to grow up initially.

[ 20 ] But before we go into the other details—and specifically the connections to the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke—let us first briefly touch on a few aspects of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. Everything described at the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew traces back to the mysteries that Jeshu ben Pandira taught within the Essenes, which were then passed on as a body of teachings by his disciple Mathai; indeed, the very first mysteries of the Gospel of Matthew point us to this disciple Mathai. Through everything that came, so to speak, from this side—which characterizes the Gospel of Matthew—the physical body and the etheric body of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew could be prepared, even though, of course, within the forty-two generations there were also influences on the astral body. But even though we have said that during the first fourteen generations the physical body, during the second fourteen generations the etheric body, and that for the third fourteen generations—since the Babylonian Captivity—the astral body comes into consideration, we must nevertheless note that what was thus properly prepared for Zarathustra was only useful for this powerful individuality insofar as it was the physical body and the etheric body.

[ 21 ] Now recall how I have always told you that, in the course of his individual personal development from birth to the age of seven, a human being primarily develops the physical body; that during the next seven years, from the change of teeth to sexual maturity, he particularly develops the etheric body; only then does the free development of the astral body begin. The development of the physical and etheric bodies was to be brought to completion in the specific physical and etheric bodies prepared by the generations beginning with Abraham, and lived through by Zarathustra in his new incarnation. But then, when he had reached the end of the development of the etheric body, what had been prepared for him was no longer sufficient, and he now had to proceed to the development of the astral body.

[ 22 ] Now the mighty and wondrous event takes place, without an understanding of which we cannot grasp the entire great mystery of Christ Jesus. The Zarathustra Individuality developed during its boyhood within the physical and etheric bodies of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew until the age of twelve; for with this Individuality, and due to the climate, the stage that we would describe in our regions as corresponding to the fourteenth or fifteenth year occurred somewhat earlier. By the twelfth year, everything that could be achieved in the correspondingly prepared physical and etheric bodies of the Solomonic line had been achieved. And then, in fact, the Zarathustra Individuality left this physical and etheric body, of which the Gospel of Matthew first speaks, and passed over into the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. For we already know from the lectures on the Gospel of Luke that the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, as told by Luke (Luke 2:42–50), actually refers to the following: Where the boy Jesus of the Gospel of Luke suddenly confronts his parents in such a way that they cannot understand him at all, where he is a completely different person, there it has come to pass that the Zarathustra individuality has entered into his inner being, having up to that point undergone its development in the physical and etheric bodies of the Solomonic Jesus. Such things exist in life, however difficult they may be to believe today given the nature of the layman’s materialistic worldview. The transition of an individuality from one body to another does occur. And such a thing took place back then, when the Zarathustra individuality left its original body and passed over into the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, in whom the astral body and the ego-bearer had now been specially prepared.

[ 23 ] Thus, from the age of twelve onward, Zarathustra was able to continue his development within the specially prepared astral body and I of the Nathanic Jesus. This is depicted for us in such a magnificent way in the Gospel of Luke, where attention is drawn to the astonishing fact that the twelve-year-old Jesus sits among the scribes in the temple and says things that sound quite strange. How was the Jesus of the Nathanic line able to do this? He was able to do so because at that moment the Zarathustra individuality had “entered” him. Zarathustra had not spoken through this boy, who had been brought to Jerusalem at that time, until he was twelve years old; therefore, the change in character was so profound that his parents did not recognize him when they found him sitting among the scribes.

[ 24 ] So we are dealing with two sets of parents, both named Joseph and Mary—names that were common at the time; but to draw any conclusions from the names Joseph and Mary based on how we understand names today is something that contradicts any genuine research—and with two boys named Jesus. The genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew tells us about one of them, Jesus of the Solomonic line of the House of David. The other boy, Jesus of the Nathanic line, is the son of a completely different pair of parents, and the Gospel of Luke tells us about him. The two boys grow up side by side and are raised together until they are twelve years old. You can find this in the Gospels. The Gospel speaks the truth throughout. And as long as people did not want others to learn the truth, or as long as people did not want to hear the truth, the Gospels were withheld from them. One need only understand the Gospels; they speak the truth.

[ 25 ] The Jesus of the Nathanic line grows up with a profound inner depth. He is not very adept at acquiring external wisdom and external knowledge. Yet he possesses a virtually boundless depth of feeling, a virtually boundless capacity for love, because within his etheric body lived that power which flowed down from the time when humanity had not yet descended into an earthly incarnation, when it still led a divine existence. This divine existence lived within him in an unlimited capacity for love. Thus, this boy was ill-suited for what human beings have acquired through their incarnations by means of the physical body; on the other hand, he was profoundly and immensely imbued with the warmth of love in regard to his soul, in regard to his inner being. He was so deeply inward that something took place which, to those who knew of it, pointed to the great inner depth of this boy. What humans otherwise only kindle in the outer world, the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was able to do in a certain way from the very beginning: he spoke certain words immediately after his birth that were understandable to those around him. Thus he was great in regard to all that was inner, yet unskilled in regard to all that had to be attained on earth itself through the generations of humanity. And were not his parents utterly astonished when, within this physical form that had grown so fully, a boy suddenly revealed himself to them—a boy imbued with all that is external wisdom, all that must be acquired through external tools? This sudden, momentous transformation was possible because at that very moment the Zarathustra individuality had passed from the Solomonic Jesus-child to this Jesus of the Nathanic line. Zarathustra, Zarathas, spoke through this boy at the moment described to us, when his parents were searching for him in the temple.

[ 26 ] Zarathustra had, of course, acquired all those abilities that can be acquired through the use of the instruments of the physical body and the etheric body. He had had to choose the bloodline of the Solomonic lineage and the physicality it had produced, because that is where the powerful forces were present and developed to the highest degree. From this physicality he took what he could acquire, and he now combined this with what originated from that inner nature that came from the Jesus figure of the Gospel of Luke, which descended from a time when the human being was not yet in an earthly incarnation. These two things now united into one. We now have a being before us. And to top it all off, I would say, we are now made aware of something special: Not only did the parents of Luke’s Jesus perceive a special change, finding something they could not have anticipated, but this change also manifests itself outwardly. Why is it specifically noted there, when the boy Jesus is found by his parents among the scribes in the temple: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth … And Jesus grew in stature, in wisdom, and in favor with God and man”? (Luke 2:51–52.) Why are these three qualities mentioned? Because they were three qualities that were particularly suited to him now that the Zarathustra individuality was within him.

[ 27 ] I would like to point out explicitly that these three words are usually translated in standard Bibles as: “And Jesus grew in wisdom, age, and favor with God and man.” I would like to know whether one really needs a Gospel to say: a twelve-year-old boy is growing in age? You even find in Weizsäcker’s translation: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man.” But that is not what is meant at all; rather, what is meant is that there was now an individuality within the Nathanic Jesus-child that was not, as before, merely inner, that did not manifest itself outwardly, but which now, because it had developed within a fully formed physical body, also manifested itself in outward physical beauty. But also, what is particularly cultivated in the etheric body—the habits one acquires and develops from life within the etheric body—was not present earlier in the Nathanic Jesus. In him, a tremendous capacity for love emerged, and upon this it was now possible to build further. But this capacity was there all at once; it could not force its way into the habits. Now, however, the other individuality was present, one that possessed within itself the forces derived from the growth of the physical body and the etheric body, and now habits could also manifest outwardly and flow into the etheric body. This is the second aspect in which the boy Jesus grew. The third, “in wisdom,” is somewhat more self-evident. The Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was not wise; he was a being capable of love to the highest degree. But the growth in wisdom was brought about by the Zarathustra individuality entering into him.

[ 28 ] I have already said in my discussion of the Gospel of Luke that it is quite possible for a personality who has been forsaken by the individuality and retains only the three bodies—the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body—since these remain behind—to continue living for a time. But what remained of the Solomonic Jesus wasted away and indeed died soon thereafter. That is to say: The actual Jesus boy of the first chapters of the Gospel of Matthew died relatively soon after his twelfth year. So, initially, we do not have one Jesus boy, but two; but then these two become one.

[ 29 ] Sometimes documents from ancient times contain very strange statements, which one must, however, understand; and one can only understand them if one knows the relevant facts. We will discuss in more detail how the two boys met; for now, only one thing needs to be mentioned.

[ 30 ] In the so-called “Gospel of the Egyptians,” there is a curious passage that was already regarded as highly heretical in the early centuries, because Christian circles did not want to hear the truth about it, or did not want to allow it to come to light. ‘But there is something that has been preserved as an apocryphal Gospel, and in it it is said, “that salvation will appear in the world when the two become one and the outer becomes like the inner.” This sentence is an exact expression of the reality I have just described to you based on occult facts. Salvation depends on the two becoming one. And they became one when, in the twelfth year, the Zarathustra individuality passed into the Nathanic Jesus, and the inner became outer. The soul power of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was something profoundly inner. But this inner quality became an outer reality as the Zarathustra individuality—which had developed in connection with the outer, the physical and etheric bodies of the Solomonic Jesus—penetrated this inner quality and, as it were, imbued it with the forces that had developed in the physical and etheric bodies. Thus a powerful force penetrated the physical and etheric bodies of the Nathanic Jesus from within, so that the outer form could now become an expression of the inner, that inner which had previously remained an inner reality before the boy Jesus of Luke had been permeated by the Zarathustra individuality. — Thus the two had become one.

[ 31 ] We have now traced Zarathustra from his birth as the boy Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew up to his twelfth year, when he left behind his original body and took on the physical form of the Nathanic Jesus, which he then continued to develop, to such an extent that he could later truly sacrifice it at a certain height, along with his three bodies, to receive that being whom we then designate as the Christ.