The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] If we wish to understand the full significance of the Christ event for the evolution of humanity, we must first revisit a fact that is already familiar to those of you who attended the lectures on the Gospel of Luke in Basel last year. We must mention this fact all the more because we wish to set the main points of the Christ event before our souls at this moment, so that in the coming hours we may, so to speak, paint in more detail the picture we intend to sketch today with a few broad strokes. But in order to get these broad strokes, it is necessary that we recall a fundamental law of human evolution, namely the law that in the course of development, human beings continually take on new and new abilities, ascending to ever greater and greater stages of perfection—if we wish to call them that. Outwardly, this fact is trivial to you if you merely look back historically at the brief period that can be encompassed by external history, when certain abilities were not yet developed in human beings, and then trace, through the turning of the ages, how new abilities have poured into humanity over time and finally brought about our present-day culture. However, for a very specific ability to awaken in human nature and then gradually become a general human ability—an ability that, so to speak, everyone can acquire in due course—it is necessary that this ability first appear somewhere in a particularly significant sense.

[ 2 ] During last year’s discussion of the Gospel of Luke, I drew attention to the “Eightfold Path” that humanity can follow if it adheres to what Gautama Buddha has contributed to human development. You can describe this eightfold path, as is usually done, as: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. These are certain qualities of the human soul. We can say: Since the time when Gautama Buddha lived, human nature has risen to such a level that it has become possible for human beings to gradually develop the qualities of this Eightfold Path within themselves, as an inner capacity of human nature. But before that, before Gautama Buddha lived on Earth in the Buddha incarnation, it was not yet part of human nature to acquire these qualities. So let us note: In order for these qualities to develop gradually within human nature, it was necessary that, through the presence of such a high being as Gautama Buddha, the impetus be given within physical human nature so that, over the course of centuries and millennia, these abilities could develop independently within human beings. I mentioned at the time that these abilities will now develop independently in a larger number of people; and when a sufficiently large number of people have attained these abilities, then the Earth will be ready to receive the next Buddha, the Maitreya Buddha, who is now a Bodhisattva.

[ 3 ] Thus, between these two events, we have encompassed that development in which a sufficiently large number of people are to acquire the higher intellectual, moral, and emotional qualities designated by the eightfold path. But for such progress to take place, it is necessary that the impetus for further development be given once by a particularly exalted individual in a specific event. Thus, it once happened that all these qualities of the Eightfold Path were comprehensively present in a single human being, namely in the personality of Gautama Buddha. And thereby this personality provided the impulse enabling all human beings to acquire these qualities. Such is the law of human evolution: something of this kind must first be present in a personality in a fully comprehensive sense; then, little by little—albeit over the course of millennia—it flows into humanity, so that all people can take up this impulse and develop those abilities.

[ 4 ] What is to flow into humanity through the Christ event is something that will not take five millennia, as was the case with what was to come into humanity through Gautama Buddha. What has flowed into humanity through the Christ Being will manifest and take effect in humanity as a special capacity for the remainder of Earth’s evolution. But what, exactly, is it that has come through the Christ event in a similar way—only as an infinitely greater impulse than that of the Buddha?

[ 5 ] If we wish to contemplate what has come into humanity through the Christ event, we can characterize it as follows: What in all ancient, pre-Christian times could only reach people within the mysteries has, since the Christ event, become possible in a certain way—and will become more and more possible as a general characteristic of human nature. How so? First and foremost, we must clarify the nature of the ancient mysteries and the nature of initiation in pre-Christian times.

[ 6 ] This initiation varied among the different peoples of the world and also differed in the post-Atlantean era. The entire scope of the initiation was distributed in such a way that one particular part of the initiation was undergone by this or that people, while another part of the initiation was undergone by other peoples. Anyone who stands on the ground of reincarnation will be able to give themselves the answer to the question that might be prompted by this: Why could not every people in ancient times have the entire scope of the initiation? This was not necessary for the reason that a soul born into a people and undergoing a part of the initiation there was not limited to that one incarnation in that people, but was reincarnated alternately in other peoples and could undergo the corresponding other part of the initiation there.

[ 7 ] If we wish to understand the nature of initiation, we must say: Initiation is the human being’s gaze into the spiritual world, a world that cannot be perceived by the senses or the outer intellect, which is bound to the instruments of the physical body. In normal life, so to speak, a person has two opportunities within twenty-four hours to be where the initiate is. Only the initiate is there in a different way than the person in normal earthly life. So, in fact, the person is always there, only they are unaware of it. The initiate, however, is aware of it. As is well known, within twenty-four hours of their life, a person dwells in a waking and a sleeping state. We have described this sufficiently so that everyone is familiar with how, upon falling asleep, the human being steps out of his physical and etheric bodies with his I and astral body. There, he pours out with his I and astral body into our entire cosmos—the one that concerns us directly—and draws from the cosmos the currents he needs during his waking daily life. Thus, from the moment of falling asleep until waking, the human being is indeed poured out over the entire world that concerns him. But they know nothing of it. Their consciousness fades at the moment of falling asleep, when the astral body and ego step out of the physical and etheric bodies, so that although the human being lives in the great world, in the macrocosm, during the state of sleep, they know nothing of it in their normal earthly existence. - This is precisely what initiation consists of: that the human being learns not only to live unconsciously where they are poured out over the entire cosmos, but that they learn to participate consciously in everything, to consciously enter into the existence of the other world bodies connected to our Earth. This is the essence of initiation into the great world.

[ 8 ] If a person were to fall asleep unprepared and were able to perceive what exists in the world in which they live while asleep, then, due to the powerful, grandiose impression that presents itself to them, they would experience something that can only be compared to the unprepared eye being blinded by the sun’s rays and beams of light. A person would experience a cosmic dazzling and be killed in their soul by this dazzling. And all initiation is based on the fact that a person enters the great world, the macrocosm, not unprepared, but prepared and with strengthened faculties, so that they can withstand the impact. This is the one thing we must describe as the essence of initiation: acclimatization to the world, being illuminated, becoming aware of the world in which the human being is at night and of which he knows nothing in the state of sleep.

[ 9 ] This sojourn in the greater world is particularly dazzling and confusing because, in the sensory world, human beings are accustomed to conditions that are entirely different from those they then encounter in the greater world. In the sensory world, human beings are accustomed, so to speak, to viewing all things from a single perspective; and if they are to allow anything to approach them that does not exactly correspond to the opinions they have formed from that one perspective, then that is wrong for them, then it does not hold true for them. If one were to venture beyond initiation into the macrocosm with this view—that all things must conform in this way—a view that is, of course, quite useful and convenient for life on the physical plane—one would never find one’s way. For just as a person lives in the sensory world, they focus on a sort of point, and from this point, from their shell, they judge all circumstances. Whatever then agrees with the opinion they have formed is true; whatever does not agree is false. But when they undergo initiation, they must go out into the wider world. Let us suppose that a person were to go out in a certain direction; then they would experience only what lies in that particular direction and leave everything else unnoticed, which would then remain unknown to them. But a person cannot go out into the macrocosm in just one direction; rather, they must go in all possible directions. Going out is an expansion, a spreading out into the macrocosm. There, the possibility of having a single vantage point ceases entirely. One must be able to view the world from one point, as it were, toward oneself—because one also looks back—but one must also be able to place oneself in a position to view the world from a second and a third perspective. That is to say, one must above all develop a certain flexibility of perception; one must gain the capacity for comprehensiveness.

[ 10 ] Of course, the fact is that we cannot deal with infinite ratios, but only with average ratios. And in fact, you need not immediately fear that an infinite number of perspectives must be attained, as is theoretically possible; rather, for all circumstances that can possibly approach human beings, twelve perspectives suffice, which are again symbolized in the star language of the Mystery Schools by the twelve images of the zodiac. For example, a person must not only move out into the cosmos in the direction of Cancer, but in such a way that they truly view the world from twelve different perspectives. It is of no help to seek harmony in an abstract, intellectual language. One can seek harmony afterward in the various resulting perspectives. First, it is necessary to view the world from different angles.

[ 11 ] I would like to point out, as it were in parentheses, that in all those world movements based on occult truths, there is, so to speak, a crux, a cross to bear: the fact that one so easily carries over into these movements the habits of life that are otherwise accepted. When one is compelled to communicate the truths attained through supersensory research, it is necessary—even when describing them only exoterically—to ensure that one presents them from various perspectives. And those who have been following our movement quite closely for years will surely have noticed that, fundamentally, it has always been our aim not to describe things one-sidedly, but from the most diverse points of view. This is, of course, also the reason why people who wish to judge everything solely according to the ordinary customs of the physical plane find contradictions here and there; for a matter certainly looks different when viewed from one side or the other. It is easy to find contradictions there. However, in a spiritual scientific movement, one of its fundamental principles should also be interpreted to mean that when something is said that seems to sound different from something said elsewhere, one should take into account that it may have been described here or there from a particular perspective. But so that such an unjust spirit of contradiction does not prevail among us, we specifically follow the practice of describing things from various perspectives. Thus, for example, participants in last year’s Munich lecture series “The Children of Lucifer and the Brothers of Christ” found vast cosmic mysteries described from the standpoint of Eastern philosophy. But it is necessary for those who wish to venture out into the cosmos along the path described to acquire flexibility and a fluid perspective. If they do not wish to do so, they will simply find themselves in a labyrinth. For one must bear in mind that while it is true that human beings can orient themselves toward the world, it is also true that the world does not orient itself toward human beings. If a person goes out with prejudices in only one direction and wishes to remain standing at that vantage point, it will happen that the world moves forward in the meantime, while he lags behind in evolution. If, for example, to speak in the language of the constellations, a person wishes to go out only in the direction of Aries, so to speak, and believes he is standing in the constellation of Aries, and the world, as a result of its own movement, now brings before his eyes what is in the constellation of Pisces, then he regards what comes from Pisces—speaking symbolically in the language of the stars—as an experience of Aries. Thus confusion arises, and the human being then finds himself truly within the labyrinth. This is why it is important to take into account that the human being does indeed need twelve vantage points, twelve perspectives, to find their way in the labyrinth of the macrocosm. This is the one thing we wish to accept for now as a characteristic of living out into the macrocosm. But in yet another way, the human being is in the divine-spiritual world without knowing anything about it, namely during the other part of the twenty-four hours of the day. Upon waking, a person does indeed enter the physical body and the etheric body, but perceives nothing of it. For at the moment of waking, when they enter, a person’s perception is immediately diverted to the external world. They would perceive something entirely different if they were to consciously descend into their physical body and etheric body.

[ 12 ] Thus, through the state of sleep, human beings are protected from consciously entering the macrocosm, for which they are not prepared. And they are protected from consciously descending into the physical and etheric bodies by having their powers of perception directed toward the external world. The danger that would arise for human beings if they were to descend unprepared into their physical and etheric bodies is somewhat different from the cosmic bewilderment and confusion we have described as the danger of venturing unprepared into the macrocosm.

[ 13 ] When a person enters the nature of their physical and etheric bodies unprepared and identifies with it, what actually happens is that the very thing for which they received the earthly physical and etheric bodies develops into a particular strength. Why did they receive these two? So that they might live in an “I” nature and develop an “I” consciousness. But the ego enters the world of the physical and etheric bodies unprepared, unpurified, and unrefined. When a person descends unprepared into the physical and etheric bodies, they are so overwhelmed that the mystical perception that now arises excludes inner truth by presenting illusions before them. In exchange for opening their gaze to their own inner nature, human beings become connected to all that is within them in terms of selfish desires and wickedness, selfish impulses, and so on. They do not otherwise connect with this; for during the day, their gaze is diverted to the experiences of the outer world, and these are nothing compared to what can develop from the human being’s own nature.

[ 14 ] I have mentioned on other occasions what the Christian martyrs and saints describe to us as their experiences when they first connected with their own nature and immersed themselves in what lived within them. It should be noted that this is the same as what we wish to point out here, and that these Christian saints, by shutting out external perception and descending inward, describe to us the temptations and seductions that seized them. The descriptions given therein correspond entirely to the truth. Therefore, it is actually tremendously instructive to study the biographies of the saints from this perspective, to see how the passions, emotions, drives, and everything that resides within the human being work, and from what the human being is distracted when, in normal life, they direct their gaze toward the external world. Thus we can say: When descending into one’s own inner self, a person is, as it were, compressed down to their ego, completely entangled in their ego, intensely squeezed into that point where they want to be nothing other than an ego, where they desire nothing else but to satisfy their own wishes and desires, where precisely the evil that is within a person seeks to seize their ego. That is the mood that asserts itself in this process.

[ 15 ] Thus we see, on the one hand, how the danger of being dazzled arises for the human being when he seeks to expand into the cosmos unprepared, and, on the other hand, how he is drawn together, compressed, and entirely forced into his ego when he sinks unprepared into his own physical and etheric bodies.

[ 16 ] However, there is also another aspect of initiation that has developed among certain other peoples. While one aspect—the reaching out into the macrocosm—has developed particularly among the Aryan and northern peoples, the other aspect has been highly developed among the Egyptians. There is also this form of initiation, in which the human being approaches the divine by turning their gaze inward and, through internalization—by descending into their own nature—comes to know the working of the divine within their own nature.

[ 17 ] In the ancient mysteries, human development had not yet progressed far enough for initiation—whether directed outward toward the macrocosm or inward toward the human being itself, toward the microcosm—to be carried out in such a way that the individual was left entirely to their own devices. For example, when an Egyptian initiation was performed and the person was led into the forces of their physical and etheric bodies, so that they fully and consciously experienced the events of their physical and etheric bodies, the most terrible passions and emotions would, as it were, burst forth from all sides of their astral nature; demonic, diabolical worlds emerged from within him. That is why, in the Egyptian Mysteries, the one who served as Hierophant needed assistants to receive what emerged and channel it through their own nature. Hence the twelve assistants of the Initiator, who had to receive the emerging demons. In this way, the human being in the ancient initiation was, in essence, never completely free. For what necessarily had to develop upon descending into the physical and etheric bodies could and was allowed to develop only if and because the human being had the twelve assistants around him who received and tamed the demons.

[ 18 ] The situation was similar in the Nordic mysteries, where the transition into the macrocosm could take place because there were again twelve servants of the initiator who transferred their powers to the initiate, so that he might develop the capacity to truly adopt the mode of thought and feeling necessary to pass through the labyrinth of the macrocosm.

[ 19 ] Such an initiation, in which the individual is completely unfree and entirely dependent on the expulsion of the demons by the initiator’s assistants, should gradually give way to a different kind of initiation, in which the individual can cope with himself, and in which the one who brings about the initiation and provides the means simply says: ‘This and that must be done’—and where the human being can then gradually find their way on their own. Humanity has not yet progressed very far along this path. But it will gradually develop as an independent capacity within humanity, so that the human being can, without assistance, both ascend into the macrocosm and descend into the microcosm, and as a free being undergo both aspects of initiation. The Christ event was there to make this possible. For human beings, the Christ event signifies the starting point for freely descending into the physical and etheric bodies, just as well as for venturing out into the macrocosm, into the great world. Once, in a comprehensive way, through a being of the highest order, such as Christ Jesus, the descent into the physical and etheric bodies as well as the going out into the macrocosm had to take place. And this is essentially what the Christ event is: that this all-encompassing being of Christ, as it were, “demonstrated” to humanity what can now be attained by at least a sufficiently large number of people in the course of the Earth’s maturation. For this, it was necessary that this event occur once. — So what has happened through the Christ event?

[ 20 ] On the one hand, it was necessary for the Christ Being itself to descend into the physical and etheric bodies. And because the physical and etheric bodies of a human being could be sanctified to such an extent that the Christ-Being descended—which has happened only once—the impulse has been given in human evolution for every person who seeks it to be able to experience the descent into the physical and etheric bodies freely. To this end, the Christ Being had to descend to Earth and accomplish what had never been accomplished before, what had never happened before. For in the ancient Mysteries, something quite different had been brought about through the activity of the assistants. In the ancient mysteries, a person could descend into the mysteries of the physical body and the etheric body and ascend into the mysteries of the macrocosm, but only in such a way that they did not actually live in their physical body during the process. They could indeed penetrate the mysteries of the physical body, but not from within the physical body; they had to be, so to speak, entirely free of the body. And when they returned, they could indeed remember the experiences in the spiritual spheres, but they could not carry these experiences into the physical body. It was a remembering, but not a bringing back into the physical body.

[ 21 ] This was to be radically changed by the Christ event, and indeed it was. Thus, prior to the Christ event, there simply was no such physical body or etheric body that had ever experienced the ego permeating the entire full human inner life down into the physical body and etheric body. Before that, it was the case that truly no one could penetrate with their ego down into the physical body and etheric body. This happened for the first time with the Christ event. And from there also emanated the other influence: that a being who, though standing infinitely above humanity, was nevertheless united with human nature, poured out into the macrocosm without external aid through his own I-ness. But this had been possible only through Christ. Only through this is it possible for human beings to acquire the ability to gradually venture out into the macrocosm in freedom. These are the two fundamental pillars that confront us in this way in both Gospels—in the Gospel of Luke and also in the Gospel of Matthew. How so?

[ 22 ] We have seen that Zarathustra, with the same individuality that was the great Teacher of Asia in ancient post-Atlantean times, later incarnated as Zarathas or Nazarathos, and that he incarnated with the same individuality in the child Jesus, whom we have described in the Gospel of Matthew , who descended from the Solomonic line of the House of David. We have seen that over the course of twelve years, the Zarathustra individuality developed within this child Jesus—that is, within itself—all the qualities that could be developed in the instrument of the physical body and the etheric body of a descendant of the House of Solomon. He possessed these qualities solely because he had lived for twelve years in this physical body and etheric body. One acquires human abilities by working them out in vehicles. Then the Zarathustra individuality left this Jesus boy and passed over into that Jesus boy described in the Gospel of Luke, who descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David, who was born as the second Jesus boy and was raised in Nazareth in the neighborhood of the other. It was into this one that the Zarathustra individuality passed at that moment which the Gospel of Luke describes as the rediscovery in the Temple in Jerusalem, after he had gone missing during the festival. While the Solomonic Jesus boy soon died, Zarathustra grew up in the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke until his thirtieth year and acquired all the abilities one can acquire with the tools one has, when, on the one hand, one has already brought with oneself what one could acquire in a physical and etheric body prepared in such a way, as we have described, and if one can further add what one can attain in such an astral body and I-bearer as the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke possessed.

[ 23 ] Thus Zarathustra grew up in this body of Luke’s Jesus until the age of thirty; with all the qualities he had been able to develop, he had progressed so far in the body we have described that he was now able to make his third great sacrifice: the sacrifice of the physical body, which for three years would now become the physical body of the Christ Being. Thus the Zarathustra individuality, having in earlier times sacrificed the astral body and the etheric body for Hermes and Moses, now sacrifices the physical body; that is to say, it leaves this shell, which is there with everything else contained within it besides the etheric body and the astral body. And what until then was filled by the Zarathustra individuality is now taken up by a being of a wholly unique nature, who is the source of all significant wisdom for all great teachers of wisdom: by the Christ. This is the event that is hinted at to us—we will describe it in greater detail—in the baptism of John in the Jordan, that event whose comprehensiveness and whose entire greatness are hinted at to us in the Gospel with the words: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I see myself, in whom my own self confronts me!” and what cannot be translated with the trivial words: “... in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). In other Gospels it is even said: “You are my beloved Son; today I have begotten you.” Here it is clearly indicated to us that this is a birth, namely the birth of the Christ in the vessel which Zarathustra first prepared and then sacrificed. At the moment of John’s baptism, the Christ-being enters the human vessel prepared by Zarathustra. Here we are dealing with a rebirth of these three vessels, as they are permeated by the substance of Christ. The baptism by John is a rebirth of the vessels nurtured by Zarathustra and the birth of Christ on earth. Now Christ is in a human body—indeed, in human bodies, as they are specially prepared—but still in human bodies such as other people also have, albeit more imperfectly.

[ 24 ] Christ, the highest individuality that can be connected to the Earth, is now in human bodies. If he is to exemplify the greatest event, if he is to exemplify full initiation, he must exemplify both sides: the descent into the physical and etheric bodies and the ascent into the macrocosm. Christ exemplifies both of these events for humanity. However, as must be the case with all Christ-related facts in nature, these events must present themselves to us in such a way that, during the descent into the physical and etheric bodies, Christ is immune to all the trials that confront him—trials that, while they do confront him, simply bounce off him. Likewise, it must be clear that the dangers that approach human beings as they venture out into the macrocosm cannot harm him.

[ 25 ] The Gospel of Matthew describes how the Christ-being truly descends into the physical body and etheric body after the baptism by John. And the account of this event is the story of the temptation (Matt. 4:1–11). We shall see how this scene of temptation reflects in every detail the experiences that a human being undergoes when descending into the physical and etheric bodies. Thus, the entry of the Christ into a human physical and etheric body, and the compression onto the human ego, is exemplified in the human being, so that it is possible to say: This is how it can be; all of this can happen to you! If you remember the Christ, if you become Christ-like, then you have the strength to face all of this, to overcome for yourselves everything that wells up from the physical and etheric bodies!

[ 26 ] This is the first striking feature of the Gospel of Matthew: the scene of the temptation. It depicts one aspect of initiation—the descent into the physical and etheric bodies. The other aspect of initiation—the expansion into the macrocosm—is also described, specifically by first showing how Christ, with human nature—in the full sense of the sensory, human nature—undertakes this expansion into the macrocosm.

[ 27 ] I would like to at least mention an obvious objection here. We will address it fully in the coming days, but today let us at least outline the main points—namely, the objection: If Christ was truly such a high being, why did he have to go through all of this, why did he have to enter the physical and etheric bodies, why did he have to step out like a human being and expand into the macrocosm? He did not need it for himself; he had to do it for humanity! In the higher spheres, with the substantialities of the higher spheres, those beings who were of the same nature as Christ were able to do so. In a human physical body and etheric body, it had not yet happened. A human body had not yet been permeated by the Christ-being. Divine substance has stepped out into space. But that which lives within the human being has not yet been carried out into space. Only a Christ could take this with him and pour it out into space. This had to be done for the first time by a God in human nature!

[ 28 ] And this second event is described by the establishment, so to speak, of the second pillar in the Gospel of Matthew, where it is shown that the second aspect of initiation—the reaching out into the wider world, the merging with the sun and the stars—was truly accomplished through Christ in human nature. There he was first anointed, anointed like any other human being, so that he might become pure, so that he might be protected against whatever might initially approach him from the physical world. There we see how the anointing, which plays a role in the ancient mysteries, meets us again on a higher level, on historical ground, whereas otherwise it was a temple anointing (Matt. 26:6–13). And we see how Christ now expresses the outpouring into the whole world—not merely being in himself, but being poured out into the rest of the world—at the Passover meal, where he explains to those standing around him that he feels himself in all that is expressed as solid within the earth—which is implied in the words “I am the bread”—and likewise in all that is liquid (Matt. 26:17–30). This conscious stepping out into the great world is indicated in the Passover meal, just as a person steps out unconsciously in sleep. And the feeling of all that which the human being must feel as an approaching daze is expressed in the monumental words: “My soul is sorrowful even unto death!” (Matt. 26:38). The Christ Jesus actually experiences what human beings otherwise experience as a kind of being killed, a kind of paralysis, a kind of daze. In the scene at Gethsemane, he experiences what might be called: the physical body, abandoned by the soul, reveals its own states of fear. What is experienced in this scene is meant to depict how the soul expands into the world and how the body is abandoned (Matt. 26:36–46).

[ 29 ] And everything that follows is indeed meant to depict the reaching out into the macrocosm: the crucifixion, what is represented by the burial, and everything else that took place in the Mysteries. This is the other pillar of the Gospel of Matthew: the expansion into the macrocosm. And the Gospel of Matthew expresses this clearly by pointing out that Christ Jesus had hitherto lived in the physical body that then hung on the cross. He was concentrated in that point in space, but now he expands into the entire cosmos. And anyone who were to seek him now would not have seen him in this physical body, but would have had to seek him clairvoyantly in the Spirit that permeates the realms.

[ 30 ] After Christ had in fact accomplished what had previously been accomplished—albeit with outside assistance—in the three and a half days of the Mysteries, after he had accomplished precisely what had been held against him—because he had said, “Tear down this temple, and in three days I will raise it up again” (Matt. 26:61)—which clearly points to the initiation into the macrocosm otherwise performed in the three and a half days—he also indicates that after this scene, he is no longer to be found where the essence of Christ Jesus was enclosed within the physical realm, but outside in the Spirit that pervades the spaces of the worlds. This is usually translated in this way, and even in these weak translations of more recent times it confronts us with all its majesty: “Hereafter you will have to seek the Being who is born of human evolution, at the right hand of Power, and He will appear to you from the clouds” (Matt. 26:64). There you must seek the Christ, poured out into the world, as the model of the great initiation that a human being experiences when he leaves the body and lives himself out, expanding himself into the macrocosm.

[ 31 ] This marks the beginning and end of Christ’s actual life, which begins with the birth of Christ into that body we spoke of in connection with the baptism by John. There it begins with one aspect of the initiation: the descent into the physical and etheric bodies in the story of the temptation. And it concludes with the other aspect of the Initiation: the expansion into the macrocosm, which begins with the scene of the Last Supper and is further depicted in the events of the scourging, the crowning with thorns, the crucifixion, and the Resurrection. These are the two points within which the events of the Gospel of Matthew are situated. And we will now place these within what we have sketched out, as it were, with charcoal.