The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eleventh Lecture

[ 1 ] The story of the temptation, which we could describe as the impetus for a special kind of initiation, was followed by what Christ Jesus could first become for his disciples as a transmitter of the ancient teachings in a completely new form, and then by what he could become not only as a transmitter of teachings but, if I may use the expression, as a power, as a healing power for humanity. This is depicted in the healings. Then yesterday we made that transition which, as I said, presupposes a certain willingness to understand—a willingness that arises from having processed the insights of spiritual science as they may have been absorbed over the course of years. We have made the transition to that unique form of living instruction through the transmission of forces that emanated from Christ Jesus and, so to speak, radiated into the souls of his disciples. And we have tried, as best we could, to express a mighty mystery in human words. We have tried to draw attention to what this teaching was like, which Christ Jesus had to impart to his disciples. He was a kind of focal point, a being that gathered forces flowing from the macrocosm into the conditions of the Earth and intended to stream toward the souls of the disciples—forces that could be gathered only through those powers united in the being of Christ Jesus. The forces that otherwise flow to human beings only unconsciously during sleep flowed from the vastness of the cosmos through the being of Christ Jesus to the disciples as the instructing and life-giving forces of the cosmos itself. In detail, of course, one can characterize these forces—which are enlightening forces regarding worldly existence—only by engaging with the various constellations in the cosmos. And we shall have to point out this mystery today as well, insofar as it is presented in the Gospel of Matthew. For now, however, we must make clear to ourselves how the disciples had to grow in wisdom regarding the conditions of the earth through the fact that the forces of Christ Jesus radiated upon them. They had to grow, so to speak, within themselves, in their lives, in their living wisdom—grow in the most diverse ways.

[ 2 ] Here we are presented with a peculiar aspect of the development of one of the disciples or apostles. But we will only understand this particular, especially significant aspect of an apostle’s life if we view it within a broader context. We must realize that humanity is, after all, progressing through human evolution. We do not go through incarnation after incarnation for no reason. Thus, in the post-Atlantean era, we did not go through incarnations within the first post-Atlantean cultural period—the Indian one—then in the Persian cultural period, in the Egyptian-Chaldean one, in the Greek -Latin, and so on; rather, we undergo these incarnations as a great school of life so that in each of these incarnations we may absorb something from the environment, from the conditions prevailing in these cultural periods. Through this we gradually grow. And in what does this growth of the human being consist as we pass through the individual epochs of human evolution?

[ 3 ] As we know from the elementary concepts of anthroposophy, the human being has various aspects to their being. If we were to list them in our own terms, we have the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, linked to the astral body is the sensory soul, then the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul. Then we have the higher aspects of human nature toward which we evolve: the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being. Now, in fact, in each of the post-Atlantean cultural epochs, something was given to us for these individual aspects of our human nature. Thus, in the first epoch, in ancient Indian culture, certain powers were instilled in human beings, through which they became more in their etheric body than they had been before. What was to be imprinted upon them in this regard in their physical body had already been instilled in them during the final times of the Atlantean period. With the etheric body, however, begin those gifts that were to be bestowed upon human beings during the post-Atlantean era. Thus, in the ancient Indian period, the forces were given to him that were to be implanted in his etheric body; then, in the ancient Persian period, the forces that were to be implanted in his astral body, the feeling body; and during the Egyptian-Chaldean period, the forces for the feeling soul. During the fourth cultural period, the Greco-Latin era, the powers of the intellectual or emotional soul were imprinted upon humanity; and now we live in the age when the corresponding powers belonging to this line are to be gradually imprinted upon the conscious soul. Humanity has not yet progressed very far in this process of imprinting. Then a sixth post-Atlantean epoch will come, in which the forces of the spiritual self will be imprinted upon human nature, and in the seventh cultural epoch, the forces of the life spirit. And then we look toward a distant future, when the spiritual human being, or Atma, is to be imprinted upon normal humanity.

[ 4 ] Let us now consider this human development in relation to the individual human being. Just as we must now view the human being, so too did those who knew something of the true nature of these things from the sacred Mysteries always view him. In the same way, the disciples had to learn to view him gradually through the life-giving, instructive power that radiated from Christ Jesus and passed on to them. We can therefore say: When we look at the human being—now or even in the time of Christ Jesus—there are potentials within him, just as there are potentials in a plant that are already present even when the plant has only green leaves and not yet flowers and fruit. We look at such a plant, which has only green leaves, and know: Just as surely as the plant is there, it already has within it the potential for the flower and fruit that it will develop if all goes according to plan. Just as surely as the flower and fruit grow out of the plant, even when it has only green leaves, so certain is it that from the human being who, as was the case at the time of Christ Jesus, possesses only a sentient soul and an intellectual or emotional soul, the conscious soul grows forth, which then opens itself to the spiritual self, so that the highest Trinity may flow into the human being as something new, like a divine-spiritual gift. Therefore, we can say: The human being unfolds from what constitutes the contents of his soul, from his soul qualities. Just as the plant that has only green leaves unfolds into flower and fruit, so the human being unfolds in such a way that, out of the feeling soul, intellectual soul, and conscious soul, holds forth something like a blossom of his being to that which comes down to him as the Divine from above, so that through the reception of the spiritual self he may undergo a further path into the heights of human development.

[ 5 ] In this way, people who, at the time of Christ Jesus, had merely developed their outer nature in a normal way, could say: Yes, at present the intellectual or emotional soul is normally developed—one that cannot yet receive a spiritual self within itself—but from the very same human being who has now developed the intellectual or emotional soul to its highest degree, the conscious soul will emerge as his child, as his result, and this conscious soul will then be able to open itself to the spiritual self.

[ 6 ] And what did human beings, in their very essence, have to unfold—as it were, as their full flowering? What grew out of them? What arose from their nature? What was this called in the Mysteries? How, then, did one have to refer to it in the circle of Christ Jesus if the disciples truly wished to make progress? It was called—if we are to translate it into our language—by the expression “Son of Man”; for the Greek word υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου by no means has the limited meaning of our “son” as “son of a father,” but rather that of what arises as the offspring of a being, what grows out of a being like the flower from a plant that previously bore only leaves. Therefore, when ordinary people had not yet developed that blossom of their being within the consciousness soul, and had not yet possessed within themselves anything of the υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, one could say: Yes, ordinary human beings have not yet developed anything of the “Son of Man,” but there must always be people who lead their race forward, who already possess within themselves, at an earlier time, the knowledge and life of a later epoch. Among the leaders of humanity there must be such individuals who, in the fourth period—when normally only the intellectual or emotional soul is developed—though they outwardly appear like other human beings, have nevertheless already developed within themselves the potential for the consciousness soul, into which the spiritual self shines. - And such “sons of man” did exist. And the disciples of Christ Jesus were therefore to grow to an understanding of the nature and essence of these leaders of humanity.

[ 7 ] Then Christ Jesus, wishing to ascertain their views on the matter, first asked his closest disciples: Tell me, of what kind of beings, of what kind of people, can one say that they are sons of man of this generation? - This is roughly how one would have to phrase the question if one wanted to ask it in the spirit of the Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew; for I have already pointed out that in the Greek translation, if one understands it correctly, everything is indeed better than it is interpreted today, but that nevertheless, some things have necessarily become unclear in the translation from the Aramaic original. So we must imagine Christ Jesus standing before his disciples and asking them: What is the prevailing view regarding which of those people of the preceding generation, who already belonged to the Greek-Latin period, were sons of man? They listed for him: Elijah, John the Baptist, Jeremiah, and other prophets. The disciples knew, through the teaching power that had come to them through Christ, that those leaders had absorbed powers within themselves through which they had grown to the point of bearing the Son of Man within themselves. On the same occasion, one of the disciples, usually called Peter, gave yet another answer (Matt. 16:13–16).

[ 8 ] To understand this other answer, we must deeply engrave upon our souls what we have just demonstrated in the past few days as the mission of Christ Jesus in the sense of the Gospel of Matthew: that through the Christ impulse, humanity was given the opportunity to develop full ego-consciousness and to bring to its highest flowering that which lies in the “I am.” In other words: Even in initiation, human beings should grow into the higher worlds in such a way that the sense of self—which we as ordinary people today possess only for the physical world—is fully preserved throughout all paths leading upward into the higher worlds. That this is possible was made possible by the existence of Christ Jesus in the physical world. Thus we may say: It is Christ Jesus who is the representative of that power which has given humanity the full consciousness of the “I Am.”

[ 9 ] I have already specifically pointed out how interpretations of the Gospels by liberal or even anti-Gospel factions typically fail to emphasize what is most important. They always point out that individual phrases in the Gospels and so on have appeared elsewhere before. For example, they might point out that even the content of the Beatitudes existed earlier. But what did not exist—and we must keep pointing this out—what could not be achieved in the past while maintaining human self-consciousness, will be achievable through the Christ impulse for human individuality! This is extraordinarily significant. I have analyzed the individual clauses of the Beatitudes and have shown that the first sentence must read: “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit,” because, in the course of human evolution, the person who is poor in spirit is one who can no longer look into the spiritual world in the sense of the old clairvoyance. But Christ gives them comfort and enlightenment: even if they can no longer look into the spiritual world through the old clairvoyant organs, they will now be able to look into it through themselves, through their ego, for: “Through themselves they will find the kingdoms of heaven!” (Matt. 5:3). Likewise the second sentence: “ Blessed are those who mourn” (Matt. 5:4). They no longer need to grow into the spheres of the spiritual world through the old clairvoyant powers; they will develop their ego in such a way that they can grow upward into the spiritual world. But for this, the ego must increasingly absorb the power that was once anchored on Earth in Christ as a unique being.

[ 10 ] People today should really give a little thought to matters like this: It is no coincidence that in each and every sentence of the Beatitudes in the Sermon on the Mount there is a Greek word that is very important: Ὅτι αὐτῶν ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν. So if we take the first sentence: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” it would then continue: “In themselves”—or “through themselves they will have the kingdom of heaven.” This “in themselves” is always being pointed to; in the second sentence, in the third sentence, and so on, it is always being referred to. — Please forgive me if I now point out something significant regarding our time in a very trivial way. Our time will have to resolve not merely to apply the word αὐτῶν “auton”—which lies in our “automobile”—to machines, not always to understand it in the most external sense, but it will have to resolve to understand the peculiarity of ὅτι αὐτῶν, the bringing into operation, in the spiritual realm as well. This is something our time may well take to heart as a warning: With regard to machines, it loves the act of putting them into operation through their own nature; but with regard to what was formerly outside of ego-consciousness, and what was experienced outside of ego-consciousness in all the ancient mysteries up to the Christ event, humanity should also learn to set things in motion through individuality, so that the human being can gradually become the self-creative originator of all this. And this is precisely what humanity today will learn to understand when it becomes imbued with the Christ impulse.

[ 11 ] When we consider this, we will say: The question that Christ Jesus asked his disciples about the other side has a very special significance. First he asked: Who among those who were the leaders of this generation could be called the Son of Man? And the disciples pointed to individual leaders. Then he asked something else. He wanted to gradually lead them to understand his own nature, to understand what he represents for the I-ness. This is contained in the other question: “And who do you say that I am?” And the “I am” must be particularly emphasized in every single instance, especially in the Gospel of Matthew. Then Peter gave an answer to the effect that he now did not merely designate the Christ as the Son of Man, but that he designated him—and we can always translate the word as is customary—as the “Son of the living God.” What is the “Son of the living God” in contrast to the “Son of Man”? To understand this concept, we must supplement the facts we mentioned earlier.

[ 12 ] As we have said, the human being develops in such a way that, in his very being, he unfolds the soul of consciousness, within which the spiritual self can appear. But once the human being has developed the soul of consciousness, the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being must, as it were, rise to meet him, so that his blossoming being may receive this higher triad. We can also illustrate this upward development of the human being graphically, as it were, like the upward growth of a kind of plant:

[ 13 ] In the soul of consciousness, the human being opens up, and the spiritual self or Manas, the life spirit or Budhi, and the spiritual human being or Atma come to meet him. This is, so to speak, something that comes to meet the human being from above as a source of spiritual inspiration. While the human being grows upward from below through the other members and opens to the flowering of the Son of Man, if they are to proceed further and take in complete ego-consciousness, what must come to meet them from above is the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being. And who is the representative of that which is brought down to him from above, that which points to the farthest future of humanity? We receive the first gift as the Spirit-Self. Whose representative is the one who will bring the gift of the descending Spirit-Self? That is the Son of the living God, the Spirit of Life, the “Son of the living God”!

[ 14 ] So at this moment, Christ Jesus asks: What must reach humanity through my impulse? That which is the life-giving spiritual principle from above must reach humanity! Thus, the “Son of Man,” who grows from below to above, stands opposite the Son of God, the “Son of the living God,” who grows from above to below. We must distinguish between them. But we must understand that this question was a more difficult one for the disciples. This question will come before your soul in all its difficulty for the disciples, especially when you consider that the disciples first received everything that even the simplest people after the time of Christ Jesus had already been imbued with through the Gospels. The disciples first had to take it all in through the living teachings of Christ Jesus. There was no capacity for understanding within the powers they had already developed that could provide an answer to the question: Whose representative am I myself? It is pointed out here that one of the disciples, named Peter, gave the answer: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16). At that moment, this was an answer that, if we may put it that way, did not come from Peter’s normal mental faculties. And Christ Jesus—let us try to bring this to life by appealing, so to speak, to the power of imagery—must have said to himself as he looked at Peter: It is significant that this answer came from this mouth, pointing, so to speak, to a time far in the future. — And when he then looked at what was in Peter’s consciousness, at what was already present in him such that he could give such an answer with his intellect or with the powers he had attained through initiation, then the Christ must have said to himself: It does not come from what Peter consciously knows; it is those deeper powers within the human being that are speaking, powers that the human being only gradually transforms into conscious powers.

[ 15 ] We carry within us the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. We ascend to the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being through the transformation of the forces of the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. This has often been described in elementary spiritual science. But the forces that we will one day develop in our astral body as the spiritual self are already present within our astral body; they have simply been developed there by divine-spiritual powers, not by us. And in the same way, a divine-spiritual life spirit is already present within our etheric body. That is why Christ says, looking at Peter: What is present in your consciousness now did not speak from you; rather, it was something speaking that you will only develop in the future—something that is indeed within you, but of which you know nothing yet. What is already in your flesh and blood cannot yet speak in such a way that the words “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” come to light; rather, it is the divine-spiritual forces lying deep beneath the threshold of consciousness that speak—the deepest ones, in fact, that dwell within the human being. - The mysterious Higher Self within Peter, which Christ calls the “Father in Heaven”—the powers from which Peter was indeed born, but of which he is not yet conscious—spoke through him at that moment. Hence the words: “It was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but the Father in heaven” (Matt. 16:17).

[ 16 ] But the Christ had to say something else as well. He had to say to himself: In Peter I see a nature before me, a disciple whose entire human constitution is such that the Father-force within him is not disturbed by the powers that consciousness has already developed, nor by the entire manner in which spiritual activity works; this subconscious human force is so strong that he can rely on it when he surrenders to this subconscious human force. That is what is important in him, Christ could say to himself. But what is in him in this way is also in every human being. It is just not yet sufficiently conscious; that will only develop in the future. If what I have to give to humanity—and for which I am the impulse—is to develop further and take hold of people, it must be grounded in what Peter has just spoken: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Upon this rock within the human being—which has not yet been destroyed by the crashing waves of the already developed consciousness—that which speaks as the Father’s power, upon this I will build what is to spring forth more and more from my impulse. - And when people develop this foundation, what will emerge is the humanity of the Christ impulse. - This is expressed in the words: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build what a community of people can become, what a gathering of people who profess the Christ impulse can become!” (Matt. 16:18).

[ 17 ] As easily as the discussions flow today—for there is a particular controversy raging almost throughout the world over these words—these words found in the Gospel of Matthew are truly not to be taken lightly. They can only be understood if one draws them from the depths of that wisdom which is at the same time the wisdom of the mysteries.

[ 18 ] And now something else must be made clear: namely, that Christ Jesus is truly building upon the deeper, subconscious power within Peter. For in the very next moment, Christ speaks of the events that are about to unfold. He begins to speak of what is to take place as the Mystery on Golgotha. And now the moment has already passed when what lies deeper within Peter speaks; now what speaks in Peter is what is already conscious within him. Now he cannot understand what the Christ means by this, cannot believe that suffering and death are to come. And where the conscious Peter speaks—who has already developed his own conscious powers within himself—there Christ must rebuke him by saying: Now it is not some God speaking, but rather that which you have already developed as a human being; that is unworthy of rising up; that comes from a teaching of deception; that comes from Ahriman, that is of Satan! - This is contained in the words: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; for you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matt. 16:23). Christ calls him Satan outright; he uses the very word Satan for Ahriman, whereas elsewhere in the Bible Diabolus stands for all that is Luciferic. Here, in fact, Christ uses the right word for the deception to which Peter must still yield.

[ 19 ] This is how things really stand. What, then, has modern, popular biblical criticism made of this? It has concluded: It is simply impossible that Christ should stand before Peter and say to him on one occasion, “You alone have understood that a God stands before you!”—while immediately afterward, on another occasion, he calls him a Satan. And the biblical critics now say: We must therefore conclude that the word “Satan,” which Christ is said to have spoken to Peter, was inserted by someone else later, and is thus a forgery. - The only truth here is that the current opinion regarding the deeper meaning of these words, derived from philological research, is worth nothing unless it is preceded by a factual understanding of the biblical documents. Only on the basis of a factual understanding of the Bible is it possible for a person to truly say anything about the historical origins of the relevant documents.

[ 20 ] But between these two words I have mentioned lies yet another. And we will only be able to understand this if we consider an ancient yet ever-new mystery teaching—the teaching that human beings, as they are on Earth, and not only human beings themselves but every human community, are a kind of reflection of what takes place in the great cosmos, in the macrocosm. We were able to describe this in particular when discussing the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth. We have seen how that word spoken to Abraham actually means: “Your descendants shall be a reflection of the order of the stars in the heavens” (Genesis 22:17). What is in the heavens—the order of the twelve constellations and the course of the planets through the zodiac—is to be repeated in the twelve tribes and in what the Hebrew people undergo over the course of three times fourteen generations. Thus, in the succession of generations with the unique inheritance through the blood ties in the twelve tribes, a reflection of the macrocosmic conditions is to be given. This is what was said to Abraham.

[ 21 ] At the moment when Christ Jesus stands before Peter, who in his deeper nature can comprehend what the Christ impulse actually entails—the spiritual power flowing down through the Son of the living God—Christ knows that he can point out to those around him that something new is now beginning on Earth, that a new image can be given. While for Abraham the image of cosmic relationships was given through blood kinship, now an image of what the human being can become through his or her ego is to be formed within ethical, moral, and spiritual relationships. When people come to understand, in the same sense that the better nature in Peter understands it, what the Christ is, then they will not only establish communities and orders based on blood kinship, but also those that consciously weave the bond of love from soul to soul. That is to say: Just as in the Jewish bloodline, in the threads that ran through the generations, was woven together what was to be woven together in the human race after the model of the macrocosm, and just as what was separated in the human race was likewise separated according to the orders in heaven, so now, out of the conscious self, in ethical, moral, and spiritual relationships, that which separates people or holds them together in love should arise. The orders of humanity should be formed or harmonized out of the conscious self. This is contained in the words spoken by Christ Jesus as a continuation of the answer he gave to Peter: “Whatever you bind on earth—whatever the deeper nature within you binds—is the same as what is bound in heaven, and whatever that same nature here below loosens is something that is also loosened in heaven” (Matt. 16:19).

[ 22 ] In ancient times, the entire significance of human relationships lay in blood ties. But more and more, human beings are meant to grow into intellectual, moral, and spiritual communities. When we consider this, we must say: What a person establishes as a community must become something meaningful to them. Speaking in anthroposophical terms, we can say: The individual karma of a person must connect with the karma of communities. You can certainly know this from what has been explained in past years. Just as it does not contradict the idea of karma when I give something to a poor person, neither does it contradict the idea of karma when a community takes upon itself what a person has as their individual karma. The community can share in the individual’s fate. Karma can be connected in such a way that the community shares in the individual’s karma. In other words, the following can occur in a moral context: An individual member within this community commits an injustice. This will certainly be inscribed in the karma of the individual personality, and it must be worked out within the greater context of the world. But another person may come forward and say: “I will help you work through this karma!”—The karma must be fulfilled, but the other person can assist him. In this way, entire communities can help the one who has committed a wrongdoing. The individual may have so interwoven his karma with the community that, because the community regards him as one of its members, he consciously receives relief from something that concerns him; the entire community sympathizes and shares the will to improve the individual; so that the community can say: “You, as an individual, have done wrong, but we stand up for you! We take upon ourselves what leads to the rectification of the karma.” - If one wishes to call the community “Church,” the Church thereby takes upon itself the obligation to bear the sins of the individual, to share in his karma. This is not what is today called the forgiveness of sins, but a real bond, a taking upon oneself of sins. And this is what it is all about: that the community consciously takes this upon itself.

[ 23 ] If one understands “binding” and “loosing” in this way, then whenever sins are forgiven—if one understands this correctly—one must consider the obligation that arises for the congregation as a result. Thus, as the threads of the individual are woven into the karma of the whole society, a net is spun. And this web, through what Christ brought down from spiritual heights, is meant to be, in its character, a reflection of the order in heaven; that is, according to the order of the spiritual world, the karma of the individual is to be connected with the collective karma, not in any arbitrary way, but so that the community organism becomes a reflection of the order in heaven. Thus this scene of the so-called Peter’s Confession begins to have an infinitely deep meaning for those who are beginning to understand it. It is, so to speak, the foundation of the future humanity built upon the ego-nature. This is what takes place in this intimate conversation between Christ and his closest disciples: that Christ transfers the power he brings down from the macrocosm to that which the disciples are to establish. And from this point on, the Gospel of Matthew presents, step by step, a leading of the disciples toward that which can flow into them from the solar power and cosmic power which the Christ-Being gathers in order to transmit them to the disciples. We know, of course, that one aspect of initiation is a stepping out into the macrocosm. And because Christ is the impulse for such an initiation, he leads his disciples—by guiding them—out into the cosmos. Just as the individual to be initiated, when undergoing this initiation, consciously grows into the macrocosm and comes to know it bit by bit, so does the Christ, as it were, survey the macrocosm, pointing out everywhere the forces at work and flowing in, and transmitting them to the disciples.

[ 24 ] I already pointed out yesterday how this happens. Let us picture the scene clearly: A person falls asleep. Then the physical body and the etheric body lie in bed, while the astral body and the I have poured out into the cosmos, and the forces of the cosmos penetrate these members. If Christ were to approach him at that moment, he would be the being who consciously draws these forces to him and illuminates them. But this is precisely the case with the scene that is presented to us: The disciples are sailing along during the last night watch; there they see that what they first took for a ghost is Christ, who allows the power of the macrocosm to flow into them (Matt. 14:25–26). It is vividly depicted how he leads the disciples to the forces of the macrocosm.

[ 25 ] And the following scenes in the Gospel of Matthew depict nothing other than how Christ leads the disciples, step by step, along the paths that the initiate must walk. It is as if Christ himself had gone through this and, step by step, led his disciples by the hand to the places where the initiate is led. I want to tell you something that will allow you to see clearly how, step by step, Christ leads the disciples out into the macrocosm.

[ 26 ] When one has vivid insights into the spiritual world, and as one’s clairvoyant powers develop, one comes to know many things that were previously unknown. In this way, one learns to recognize, for example, the actual connection in the progressive stages of a plant’s growth. The materialistic mind will say of the plant: Here I have a flower—let us assume a flower that bears fruit—and a seed will develop there. One can remove the seed, bury it in the earth; the seed rots, and a new plant appears, which also bears seeds. Thus it continues from plant sprout to plant sprout. The materialistic view would think that something from the rotting seed passes over into the new plant. The materialistic view cannot think otherwise: no matter how small or tiny it may be, something material must pass over. But that is not the case. In fact, in terms of the material, the entire old plant is destroyed. A leap occurs in terms of the material, and the new plant is, materially speaking, something entirely new. A new formation actually takes place.

[ 27 ] One comes to understand the most important relationships in the world by learning to grasp this peculiar law and apply it to the entire macrocosm—namely, that leaps do indeed occur in relation to material conditions. This was expressed in a very special way in the Mysteries. It has been said: As the initiate steps out into the cosmos, he must, at a certain stage, become acquainted with the forces that bring about these leaps. Now one comes to know something in the cosmos when one moves in a certain direction, which is expressed by using the constellations as a guide. These are then like letters. When we thus grow outward in a certain direction, we experience the leap from the ancestor to the descendant, be it in the realm of the plant, the animal, the human, or in the realm of planetary existence; for even, for example, in the transition from Saturn to the Sun, all that was material was lost. The spiritual remained; all that was material disintegrated. It was the spiritual that brought about the leap. It was the same during the transition from the Sun to the Moon, and from the Moon to the Earth. This is true in the smallest and in the largest scales. — There are now two symbols: an old one, through which things were depicted more figuratively, in an imaginative script, and then a newer symbol representing the leap. You can find the new one in the calendars. As evolution continues, the old one curls inward, much like a spiral, and the new evolution then emerges from the old one like a second spiral, proceeding from the inside out. But the new evolution does not continue in such a way that it immediately follows the old one; rather, there is a small leap between the end of the old and the beginning of the new, and only then does it continue.

[ 28 ] This is how we arrive at this figure: two spirals intertwined, with a small gap in the center—the sign of Cancer, which is meant to symbolize our expansion into the macrocosm and represent the emergence of some new sprout within the course of evolution.

[ 29 ] There was another symbol used to represent these relationships. As strange as it may seem to them, it was designed to depict a donkey and its foal—the ancestor and the descendant. This was meant to represent the actual transition from one state to another. And in fact, even the constellation of Cancer is very often depicted in ancient illustrations in such a way that it shows a donkey and its foal. It is not unimportant to know this. It is an important lesson for humanity in understanding that even in the ascent into the macrocosm there is such an important transition, in which the human being grows upward into the spiritual world but must then build upon entirely new insights, This is depicted quite accurately in the language of the stars, as if the physical sun were passing through the constellation of Cancer and, after reaching its highest point, were undergoing a descent once more. So it is also when the initiate first undergoes the ascent into the spiritual world to become acquainted with the forces, and then, having recognized them, brings these forces back down again to make them serve humanity.

[ 30 ] The fact that Christ Jesus demonstrates this to his disciples is recounted in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 21:1–11) as well as in the other Gospels. And it is told in such a way that he does not work through mere words, but rather demonstrates to his disciples the imagination, the living image of what he himself is accomplishing as he moves toward that height to which humanity is to ascend through its development over time. Here he uses the image of the donkey and its foal; that is, he leads the disciples to an understanding of what in spiritual life corresponds to the constellation of Cancer. This is thus an expression of something that took place in the spiritually alive, spiritual relationship between Christ and his disciples. And this is something of such majesty and grandeur that it cannot be expressed by choosing human words from any language, but only by Christ leading the disciples into the conditions of the spiritual world and creating for them, within physical conditions, images of the macrocosmic world. There he leads them up to the point where the powers of the Initiate become usable again for humanity. There he stands at a height that can only be hinted at by saying: He stands at the height of the Sun in the sign of Cancer! No wonder, then, that the Gospel of Matthew points out at this point that the Christ life has reached its zenith during its time on earth, and powerfully emphasizes this with the words: “Hosanna in the highest!” Every word is chosen so that through what is happening there, the disciples may grow, so that in turn, through what is taking place within them, that which Christ Jesus was able to bring into the development of humanity may grow within humanity itself.

[ 31 ] And the Passover narrative that follows is nothing other than the now-living, active infusion of what was first intended to be instilled in the disciples as a teaching and is then to be magically infused into humanity through the forces that emanated from the Mystery of Golgotha. This is how we must understand the further course of the Gospel of Matthew. We will then also understand how the writer of the Gospel of Matthew always remained conscious that he must, so to speak, draw attention to the contrast between the living teaching that has been heard from the cosmic heights and applies to the disciples, and that which may confront outsiders who are not receptive to the forces of Christ Jesus himself. That is why we encounter those remarks in the discussions with the scribes and Pharisees, which we will consider tomorrow. Today, however, we wish to point out that Christ Jesus, having led his disciples as far as possible and allowed them to participate in the places to which the initiate is led, also held out the prospect to them that, if they follow this path, they themselves will experience growing into the spiritual world of the macrocosm. He tells them that they themselves possess the predisposition for initiation, that it lies ahead of them, and that they will live their way out into the macrocosmic world, where they will be able to recognize more and more the true nature of the Christ as the Being who fills all spiritual realms and who had his image in Jesus of Nazareth. That they are maturing toward this initiation, that they will become initiates of humanity—this is what Christ had to tell his disciples. He was also able to point out to them that one can only grow into independent initiation by allowing the inner self to mature through patience and perseverance.

[ 32 ] What, then, must develop within a person as their inner being grows ever more powerful and as they cultivate the clairvoyant, higher power? Their innate capacities must develop in such a way that they can receive the powers of the spiritual self, the life spirit, and the spiritual human being. But when that power from above will shine into him, making him an initiate, a participant in the realms of heaven—that depends on the moment when the human being can become ripe; it depends on the karma of the individual. Who knows this? Only the highest initiates know this. Those who stand on the lower steps of initiation do not yet know this. If any individual is ripe to grow into the spiritual world, the hour of that growth will come for them as well. Certainly, it will come, but it will come in such a way that the person does not see it coming; it will come “like a thief in the night” (Matt. 24:43). But how does a person grow into the spiritual world?

[ 33 ] The ancient mysteries—and, in a certain sense, the more recent ones as well—had three stages for macrocosmic initiation. The first stage was that in which the human being grew into it to such an extent that he perceived everything that can be perceived through the spiritual self. There he is not merely a human being in the new sense, but there he has grown up to what is called, in the sense of the hierarchies, the angelic nature; this is the hierarchy immediately above the human being. Thus, in the Persian Mysteries, one who grew into the macrocosm so that the spiritual self was active within him was called either a “Persian,” because such a person was no longer an individual but belonged to the angel of the Persian people. Or such people were called directly angels or divine natures. The next stage is then that in which the life spirit awakens accordingly. A person at this stage was called either a “Sun Hero” in the sense of the Persian Mysteries, because he then absorbed the power of the sun, developing upward from below toward the forces of the sun, where the spiritual power of the sun met the earth; but he was also called a “Son of the Father.” And the one into whom the Atma or the spiritual human being reached was called the “Father” in the ancient mysteries. These were the three stages of the initiate: angel, son or sun hero, and father.

[ 34 ] Only the highest Initiates can judge when Initiation may awaken within a person. That is why the Christ said: Initiation will come as you continue along the paths I have now led you on. You will ascend into the realms of heaven, but the hour is known neither to the angels, who are initiated with the Spirit-Self, nor to the Son, who is initiated with the Life-Spirit, but only to the highest initiates, who are initiated with the “Father.”—Therefore, a passage from the Gospel of Matthew speaks to us here once again, one that is in absolute harmony with the mystery tradition. And we shall see that the proclamation of the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing other than the prediction to the disciples that they will experience initiation. That this is what he means is made particularly clear by Christ Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 24). If one reads the passage in question correctly, it is plain to see that Christ wishes to point to certain teachings that were circulating at the time regarding the ascent into the kingdoms of heaven. People had taken this ascension into the realms of heaven in a material sense, believing that the entire earth would ascend, whereas they should have known that only individual initiates ascend through their initiation; that is, the view arose among some that a material transformation of the earth into heaven would soon take place. And Christ draws special attention to this by saying that there will be those who claim this. He calls them false prophets and false messiahs (Matt. 24:24). Therefore, it is quite strange that even today some interpreters of the Gospels still fabricate the notion that the belief in a physically approaching Kingdom of God was a teaching of Christ Jesus himself. Anyone who can truly read the Gospel of Matthew knows that what Christ Jesus means is a spiritual process to which the initiate grows, but to which, in the course of Earth’s evolution, all of humanity that holds fast to Christ will also grow—but will grow as the Earth itself becomes spiritualized.

[ 35 ] “From this perspective, too, we must look more deeply into the entire structure of the Gospel of Matthew, and we then also come to feel that great reverence for this Gospel, particularly because, so to speak, no other Gospel so easily leads us to literally eavesdrop on how Christ Jesus first instructs his disciples from the standpoint of the ‘I.’ We see his disciples standing around him and observe how the forces of the cosmos work through the human body. We see how he leads his disciples by the hand so that they may come to know what the initiate can learn. We eavesdrop on human relationships as they form around Christ Jesus. This is what makes the Gospel of Matthew such a deeply human work. Through the Gospel of Matthew, we truly come to know the man Jesus of Nazareth, the bearer of Christ. We come to know everything he accomplishes by condescending into human nature. Yes, even the heavenly events are clothed in such truly human relationships within the facts of the Gospel of Matthew.

[ 36 ] As this is also the case for the other aspects—not just for the circumstances of initiation—more on this in the next and final lecture.