The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] When one approaches the study of the Gospels through the lens of spiritual science, one discovers that truly profound experiences resonate from these Gospels. And one might say that perhaps people will only begin to grasp what has flowed into these Gospels from the spiritual experiences of their authors and scribes once spiritual science has become more widely known than it is today. In particular, all sorts of things will then be recognized in the Gospels that are not directly contained within these texts, but which can only be noticed when one places these four Gospels side by side and considers them together. All sorts of things can be noticed there.

[ 2 ] I would first like to point out that in the Gospel of Matthew, the actual presentation of the Christ impulse is preceded by a nativity story that begins with a description of the ancient Hebrew people, or rather with their forefather, so that the presentation of the Christ impulse in the Gospel of Matthew only goes back as far as the beginning of the ancient Hebrew people. We thus learn, as it were, from this Gospel to recognize the bearer of the Christ essence as having grown out of the ancient Hebrew people. When we then turn to a consideration of the Gospel of Mark, the Christ impulse itself immediately confronts us. Everything concerning the childhood narrative is initially left out of consideration. After we have been made aware that John the Baptist speaks as the great forerunner of the Christ impulse, the Gospel of Mark begins immediately with the account of John’s baptism in the Jordan. Then again, through the Gospel of Luke, we come to know a new kind of childhood story, but one that goes much further back in tracing the lineage of the man Jesus of Nazareth, going back, so to speak, to the beginning of humanity on earth. By tracing the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth back to Adam and then stating, “he was God’s,” this nativity story clearly shows us that the human aspect of Jesus of Nazareth is to be traced back to the point in time when humanity first emerged from its origin as divine-spiritual beings. Thus, the Gospel of Luke takes us back to that point in time when humanity is no longer encountered as an earthly being embodied in the flesh, but rather as a spiritual being emerging, as it were, from the bosom of divine spirituality. Then, in the Gospel of John, we are confronted with the great fact that, once again, without any account of his childhood, without any discussion of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth, we are immediately—and now in a particularly profound sense—led to the essence of Christ.

[ 3 ] In the course of the spiritual-scientific development we have undergone in recent years, we ourselves have now taken a certain approach to the study of the Gospels, beginning with the Gospel that could offer us the highest insights into the abstract spirituality of Christ: the Gospel of John. We then examined the Gospel of Luke to show how this highest spirituality, as it manifests itself in a human being, is portrayed when that human being is traced back to the point in time when he himself emerged as an earthly human being from the Divine. And we then examined the Gospel of Matthew to understand the Christ impulse as emerging from the ancient Hebrew people. We have, so to speak, saved the Gospel of Mark for last. We will only truly understand why we did this if we connect some of what we have been able to touch upon from general spiritual science in recent times with what has been known to us since earlier times and with some new insights. That is why, in the last lecture here, attention was drawn to various aspects of human life in the composition of the human being’s constituent parts, and today a similar consideration is to be made once more by way of introduction, which can again point us to specific aspects in the development of the human being itself. For it will become ever more necessary for humanity that the conditions of human development be recognized—indeed, not only recognized, but observed.

[ 4 ] As we move further into the future, human beings will increasingly seek to become more independent and more individual. Faith in external authorities will be increasingly replaced by the authority of one’s own soul. This is a necessary course of development. However, for this course to become a source of salvation and blessing, human beings must recognize their own essence. One cannot say, however, that we as humanity as a whole are particularly advanced today in terms of our appreciation and understanding of human nature. For what is happening today, among many other things, within our contemporary history? There is certainly no shortage in our time of all manner of humanistic programs, all manner of humanistic ideals, and what is commonly referred to as such. One could almost say: Not just every other person, but every person today wants to present themselves as a sort of little messiah with a special ideal, wanting to create from their own mind and heart an ideal image of what is to serve as salvation and blessing for humanity. - And there is certainly no shortage today of associations and societies founded to introduce into our culture this or that which people believe to be most necessary. We have programs and idealistic demands in abundance today, and there is no lack of faith in such programs either. For the power of conviction among those who formulate such programs in our time has grown to such an extent that it will soon be necessary to convene a kind of council that would declare the infallibility of every human being. In this, we convey something of what is, in the deepest sense, characteristic of our time.

[ 5 ] Spiritual science does not prevent us from thinking about our future. But we are reminded that there are fundamental conditions and laws that cannot be disregarded with impunity if we wish to achieve anything in relation to these impulses. For what does modern man believe? He consults within himself; this or that ideal arises in his soul, and he considers himself capable of bringing this ideal into reality on the broadest scale. Yet they do not consider that the time to bring this ideal into reality may not yet have come, that the image they form of this ideal is perhaps merely a caricature, and that perhaps only a more or less distant future could allow such an ideal to mature. In short, it is so difficult for people today to understand that every event must be prepared for in the course of development, that every event must fall at a specific point in time determined by the general macrocosmic conditions of the world. It is extraordinarily difficult for people today to grasp such a thing. Yet this is a general law and applies to every single human being, just as it applies to the entire human race. We can recognize this law in the individual human being when we observe life from a spiritual-scientific perspective. There we can, so to speak, focus on the smallest, most immediate thing, on something that is to spring from our own soul.

[ 6 ] I do not wish to present you with general ideas, but rather to stick to observation. Therefore, I will first assume that someone finds themselves in a situation where they grasp an idea with all the intensity of their soul, so that they are inflamed by this idea, that this idea takes on a very specific form in their soul, and that they are permeated by the will to realize this idea in some way. So let us assume that this idea arises in his mind and he is permeated by the emotional impulse of his heart. Then the person of today will not be able to wait; he will naturally set out immediately to realize this idea.

[ 7 ] Let us assume that this idea is, at first, a small idea concerning only some information about scientific or artistic facts. Will the occultist, who knows the laws, immediately counter such a completely foreign idea to the world? — Let us assume that it is a small idea. The occultist knows that the first way this idea manifests is initially as a life of this idea within the human astral body. This can already be observed externally by the fact that enthusiasm is present in our soul. This is initially a force within our astral body. It will generally be disastrous if the person does not allow the idea to rest within them at this stage, but instead immediately presents it to their fellow human beings or to the world, for this idea must first undergo a very specific process. It must, in fact, take hold of the astral body ever more deeply and then imprint itself like a seal upon the etheric body. If this idea is a small one, this process may take, say, seven days. But this time is necessary. And if a person rushes headlong with their idea, they always tend to overlook something important, namely that after seven days a very specific experience occurs, one of a subtle nature. If one pays attention to such things, one can have this experience; if one rushes headlong with one’s idea and says, “Let it come into the world!”—the result is that the soul is not at all inclined to listen to what takes place on the seventh day. For on the seventh day, with a small idea, it always happens that one doesn’t really know what to do with it, that it vanishes from one’s soul again. One is unsettled, perhaps even tormented inwardly, filled with all sorts of doubts, yet one has grown fond of the idea, even though it has become something tormenting. The enthusiasm has transformed into an intimate feeling of love. Thus, this idea is now within the etheric body.

[ 8 ] If it is to continue to develop, it must take hold of the external astral substance that constantly surrounds us. Thus, it must first pass from our astral body into our etheric body and from there into the external astral realm. This journey takes the idea another seven days. And if one is not the sort of person who says: When the idea begins to torment us, we no longer want it, so off with it! — but if one pays attention to the course of life, then after this time one can recognize that something occurs that might be expressed something like this: One finds an external response to one’s idea, so that one says to oneself: It is good that you waited fourteen days, for now you are no longer alone with your idea. It is as if you are inspired by the macrocosm, so that something from the outer world enters into your idea. - Only then does one feel that, as a human being, one is in harmony with the entire spiritual world, which offers something in return when one offers something to it. This is a certain uplifting feeling that arises after a period of about fourteen days.

[ 9 ] But then this idea must make its way back again, first from the outer astral realm into the etheric body. Then we already sense it quite concretely, and the temptation is quite great to hand it over to the world. Here we must hold back with all our strength; for there is now the danger that the idea, because it still rests in the etheric body, would enter the world in a cold manner and be communicated to the world in a cold, icy way. But if we wait a further period of seven days, what is icy rises up and interpenetrates once more with the warmth of our own astral body, taking on a personal character; so that what we first gave birth to and had baptized by the gods, we may now present to the world as our own. Every impulse we feel in our soul must actually pass through these last three stages until it matures within us. This applies even to a small idea.

[ 10 ] For an idea that may be more meaningful, longer periods of time will be necessary—but always ones that follow a seven-to-seven rhythm. Thus, weeks, not months, and then years again, form such a rhythm, so that we can have a sequence of seven-to-seven weeks and then seven-to-seven years.

[ 11 ] From this we see, then, that it is not merely a matter of modern people believing they have some kind of impulse within their souls, but rather that one must possess the ability to bear this impulse patiently, to allow it to be baptized by the World Spirit, and then to live it out in its mature state. One could add other such laws that exist; for what is called the development of the soul is full of such laws. If, for example, we feel particularly inspired on a certain day—and these days vary greatly in human life—: You feel today as if favored by the World Spirit, ideas arise within you! —then it is good not to rush headlong into it, but to know that after nineteen days a similar process of fertilization is taking place in the soul. In short, the development of the human soul is full of such laws. Now, human beings—one might say, thank God—have a strong instinctive sense not to overdo these things, nor to ignore them entirely. They do take them into account. In particular, people who depend on cultivating something higher within themselves and allowing it to mature take this into account without actually knowing the laws. One could easily demonstrate how artistic natures exhibit a certain rhythm, a certain periodicity in their creative work—a certain rhythm based on days, weeks, years, and so on. This can be demonstrated quite easily, especially in the case of artists of the very highest order, for example in Goethe: that something actually arises in his soul and only truly matures after four times seven years, and then emerges in a different form than we first saw it arise in Goethe’s soul.

[ 12 ] One might easily say, in keeping with the prevailing attitudes of our time: Yes, my dear spiritual researcher, such laws may well exist; but why should people concern themselves with them? He will observe them instinctively. — Yes, this statement was true in the past. But because people are becoming more and more independent, listening more and more to their own individuality, they must also learn to develop an inner calendar within themselves more and more. Just as people have an external calendar, which is of great importance for physical activities, so in the future, as the soul grows in intensity, people will, for example, feel inner weeks, experience a sense of life that ebbs and flows, and feel inner Sundays. For humanity is moving toward innerization. Much of what humanity has previously experienced in the numerical division of external life, people will later experience internally; they will experience a resurrection of the macrocosmic in the soul, the further we move toward the future. It will be a natural duty for them not to cause turmoil and upheaval in human development by continually transgressing the sacred laws of soul development. People will come to understand that it is merely a form of refined, higher selfishness when they always want to immediately share whatever takes hold in their soul. And people will naturally come to feel the Spirit within their soul—not abstractly, as they do today, but they will sense how this Spirit works regularly and lawfully within their soul. And when something occurs to them, when they themselves wish to share their innermost feelings, they will not rush upon humanity like a raging bull, but will listen to what the spirit-filled nature within the human being speaks.

[ 13 ] What will it mean for people when what emerges into the world from the laws of the inner spiritual realm—to which we are to listen and from which we are to draw inspiration—gains ever greater significance? - For the most part, people today still have no sense of such a thing. They do not believe that spirits within will take hold of human beings and act in accordance with spiritual laws. For a long time to come—even among those who mean well for human culture—it will be regarded as folly to speak of this inner, law-governed activity of the spirit. And for those who believe in the spirit based on spiritual scientific knowledge, the deep antipathy of the times that have come upon us will bring to pass what is said in the Gospel of Mark specifically for our times: “When they take you away and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, nor plan it in advance; but whatever is given to you at that very hour, speak that. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”

[ 14 ] We must seek to understand such a passage, which refers specifically to our time, in such a way that its validity is derived from its place within the overall context not only of the Gospel of Mark, but also of the other Gospels. If you look through the Gospel of Mark, you will see that it contains things that, for the most part, can also be found in the other Gospels. But there is one passage in the Gospel of Mark that is quite remarkable, as it does not appear in the other Gospels. This particular passage is especially remarkable because Gospel scholars have spoken all sorts of truly great nonsense specifically about it. It is where Jesus Christ goes out to preach to the people, and where it is said, after he has chosen his apostles: “And they came home; and the people gathered together so that they had no room to eat. And when his own heard this, they went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”

[ 15 ] This passage does not actually appear in the other Gospels. If we now consider that the course of human development toward the future will be such that the Pauline saying, “Not I, but Christ in me!” will become ever truer, and that therefore only the human self that takes in the Christ impulse can bear fruit, then we may apply the passage cited above to our own time in the most profound sense. This destiny, which Christ Jesus exemplified during the events in Palestine, will—like all Christ events—unfold for all of humanity over the course of time. In the near future, people will increasingly sense that wherever Christ is proclaimed in the spiritual-scientific sense from a place of inner understanding, the deepest antipathies will arise among all those who instinctively reject spiritual science. It will not be difficult to see that in the future, what is described to us as an exemplary Christ event, particularly in the Gospel of Mark, will play out. The outward way of life of many people, as well as much of what will assert itself as art, but above all, to the greatest extent, that which will present itself as science, will, with regard to those who proclaim the Spirit in the Christ-sense, say of the very near future: “From it emerge such people that it seems as if they were out of their minds.”

[ 16 ] For it must be said again and again that the most important facts of spiritual life, as presented by spiritual science, will be regarded by the majority of humanity in the future as fantasies and follies. And we are to draw from the Gospel of Mark the strength we need to stand firm against the opposition that will arise against the truth that can be found in the spiritual realm.

[ 17 ] If one has a sense of the subtle stylistic differences between the Gospel of Mark and the other Gospels, one also notices that, from a spiritual-scientific perspective, certain elements are presented differently in the Gospel of Mark than in the other Gospels. One notices that through the sentence structure, through the omission of certain sentences found in the other Gospels, certain elements that could easily be taken abstractly take on a special nuance. If one has a sense of this, one will also notice in particular that the Gospel of Mark contains a radical, significant doctrine of the “I,” a doctrine of the full significance of the human “I.” To understand this, one need only consider a single passage from this Gospel with all its peculiarities, which arise from the omission of this or that element found in the other Gospels within this passage. If one has a sense for such peculiarities, then one will be able to feel the profound significance that lies in this passage of the Gospel of Mark. Let us bring it before our eyes:

[ 18 ] And Jesus set out, and his followers accompanied him to the towns in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. And as they were walking along the road, he said to those around him: “What do people say about who I am? How do people identify me?” - Then those who were around Jesus answered: “People say that John the Baptist must live within the I for the I to be true. But others also say that this I must be permeated by Elijah, and that Elijah must live within the I; still others say that another of the prophets must be treated in such a way that the I says: ‘Not I, but this prophet within me is acting.’” — But he said to those who were around him: “What do you say, then, that the Self is?” - Then Peter answered: “The Self, understood in such a way that we recognize it in its spirituality as ‘You’—that is the Christ!” — And then he answered those who were around him: “Take care not to tell this to ordinary people! For they cannot yet understand this mystery.” — But to those around him who were stirred by these words, he began to teach the following: That which in man outwardly and physically expresses the I-ness must, if this I-ness is to come fully alive in man, suffer much; and just as it was, it must accept that the oldest masters of humanity and those who know what is contained in the most sacred wisdom say: In the form in which it currently exists, it is of no use; it must be killed in that form and, following a three-day rhythm dictated by worldly conditions, be reborn from a higher form. — And they were all dismayed when he spoke these words freely and openly.

[ 19 ] I must make a comment here. Until then, such a word was permitted to be spoken only within the Mysteries. It was a secret that had previously been spoken only within the Mystery temples—the secret that the human being had to undergo the “die and become” in initiation and had to awaken after three days. This explains the statement:

[ 20 ] Peter was dismayed; he took Christ aside and told him that such things should not be spoken freely and openly. Then Christ Jesus turned and said: “When you say such things, Peter, it is Satan who puts them into your mind; for as you speak this truth, it lies beyond our time, belongs to the past; there it had to be confined within the temples. In the future, in light of the primordial mystery of Golgotha, it will gradually be able to become the property of all humanity. Thus is it ordained in the divine guidance of world development. And whoever says otherwise does not speak from divine wisdom, but transforms divine wisdom into the temporal form it had among humans in the past.

[ 21 ] This is roughly how we must understand this passage, which confronts us with particular force in all its succinct grandeur in the Gospel of Mark. We must realize that the Christ impulse, precisely in the sense of the Gospel of Mark, consists in our taking Christ into our inner self and in Paul’s words: “Not I, but Christ in me!” — and to realize this more and more; and not merely the abstract Christ, but the Christ who sent the Holy Spirit, the concrete Spirit who, as described today, works inspiringly within the human soul through his inner calendar in accordance with the laws of nature.

[ 22 ] In pre-Christian times, people arrived at this truth only by undergoing initiation into the mysteries and spending three and a half days in a death-like state, after having endured the tragic sufferings of the human being as he exists on the physical plane when he is to evolve to spiritual heights; so that they had come to know that this human being must be cast aside, must be killed, and that a higher human being must rise within him—that is, that they had undergone the “die and become.” But what previously could only be experienced in the Mysteries became a historical event—I refer here to my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*—through the Mystery of Golgotha, and through this, all people were given the opportunity to be disciples of this great wisdom by feeling connected to the Mystery of Golgotha. What was once experienced only in the mystery temples can now be experienced in relation to the site of Golgotha. Thus, understanding the Christ impulse is precisely the most significant understanding that a human being can acquire for their earthly existence, for that which, following the Christ impulse, is to awaken more and more within the human ego.

[ 23 ] We can now, in a certain sense, draw inspiration from the Gospels ourselves. For the time in which the Christ event itself took place, the Gospel of Matthew was a good source of inspiration. For our time, this applies in particular to the Gospel of Mark. We know, after all, that our age is one in which the conscious soul—which separates itself in isolation from its milieu—is to be developed above all. We know that we are now called not so much to focus on descent from a single people, but on that which is to live within us according to the Pauline saying: Not I, but Christ in me! — Thus, our fifth post-Atlantean epoch is the one that will be particularly inspired by the Gospel of Mark. In contrast, the sixth post-Atlantean cultural epoch will have the task of gradually filling the whole human being with the Christ-essence. While in the fifth cultural epoch the Christ-essence will be the object of study, deepening, and inner contemplation, in the sixth cultural epoch human beings will take up the Christ-essence into their entire being. To this end, they will draw upon the special treasure we have come to know as the inner essence of the Gospel of Luke, which has shown us the entire origin of Jesus of Nazareth—both the Jesus described in the Gospel of Matthew, who traces back to Zarathustra, and the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, who traces back to Buddha and Buddhism. For this is how we have viewed the Gospel of Luke: so that the Jesus of Nazareth became clear to us in terms of his entire long development, enabling us to trace back to the divine-spiritual origin of the human being. And as a divine-spiritual being, humanity will be able to feel itself more and more as such and must permeate itself with the Christ impulse. This may indeed shine before them as an ideal, but it only becomes concrete when they truly rise up through the Gospel of Luke to the point of comprehending the physical-sensory human being with its divine origin as a spiritual being.

[ 24 ] And for the seventh post-Atlantean cultural epoch, leading up to the next great catastrophe, the Gospel of John will serve as a book of inspiration, whereas today it can serve as a guide for human spiritual life. However, people will still need to learn many things that they must come to understand well as spiritual beings during the sixth period. But people will have to unlearn much of what they believe today; they will have to unlearn it thoroughly. That will not be difficult, however, for scientific facts will prove that many things will have to be overcome.

[ 25 ] Even today, many people still view those who point out the self-evident truth—that the current classification of nerves into motor and sensory nerves is an absurdity—as “out of their minds.” There are no such things as “motor” nerves. There are only sensory nerves. Motor nerves are also sensory nerves; they merely serve to bring about the corresponding sensations of movement in the muscles themselves. It will not take long at all before people come to realize that the muscle is indeed not set in motion by nerves, but that it comes into motion through our astral body, and specifically through that part of our astral body which is not initially perceived directly as it is. For it is a law that what is meant to have an effect is not perceived directly. What sets the muscle in motion, what causes any movement of the muscle, is connected to the astral body, and specifically in such a way that within the astral body itself, a kind of tonal development, a kind of sound development, takes place in relation to the movement of the muscle. Something like a musical quality permeates our astral body, and the expression of this tonal development is the muscle movement. It is truly as if, in the well-known Chladni figures, we were to place light, movable dust on a metal plate and then stroke it with a violin bow: there we obtain a figure. Our astral body is also permeated by countless such figures—which are, however, sound figures—that together cause our astral body to assume a specific position. This is imprinted in the astral body. People can easily convince themselves of this by tensing their biceps, the upper arm muscle, and then bringing it close to their ear: if they practice this a bit—simply tensing the muscle and placing their thumb against it—they can hear the tone. This is not meant to be proof, but merely a simple illustration of what is meant here. - Thus we are permeated by music and express it through our muscle movements. And to be aware of our muscle movements, we have what are incorrectly called the motor nerves. The way things are grouped in physiology today still suggests otherwise, but only superficially.

[ 26 ] This, however, is only one type of such truths that will increasingly convince people that human beings are truly spiritual beings, truly woven into the harmonies of the world spheres, right down to their muscles. And it is precisely spiritual science, which is called upon to prepare the sixth epoch with regard to the spiritual apprehension of the world, that will have to deal with every detail concerning such truths about human beings as spiritual beings. Just as sound, in a certain sense, ascends to a higher sphere when it transforms from a musical tone into the human spoken word, so it is also in the context of the world: the harmony of the spheres becomes something higher when it becomes the world-word, the Logos. It becomes this when everything that acts as the harmony of the spheres becomes word, becomes Logos. Now, in the physical organization of the human being, the next higher level—physiologically speaking—is the blood. Just as the muscle is integrated into the harmonies of the spheres, so is the blood integrated into the Logos and can increasingly become an expression of the Logos, as it has been unconsciously since the Incarnation. That is to say, there is a tendency on the physical plane for the human being to consciously perceive the expression of the Logos in his blood, which is the expression of the I. And when human beings in the sixth cultural epoch have come to know themselves as spiritual beings, they will no longer cling to the fantasy that the muscles are set in motion by the motor nerves, but they will recognize that the muscles are moved out of the sphere harmony that has become personal. And in the seventh cultural epoch, people will then be able to feel the Logos permeating them right down into their blood, and only then will they be able to feel what is actually expressed in the Gospel of John. For it is only in the seventh cultural epoch that the Gospel of John will be able to be recognized in its scientific nature. And then, once the scientific nature of the Gospel of John has been recognized, people will gradually come to feel that the first words of the Gospel of John ought to appear in every book on physiology, that everything in science ought to tend toward these words. It is best to say: One can already understand much of it today, but by no means everything. One can hold it up as an ideal.

[ 27 ] From everything I have spoken about today, we can see that the Gospel of Matthew was to be regarded as particularly inspiring for the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, but that we must regard the Gospel of Mark as inspiring especially for our own time, that the Gospel of Luke will become important for the next, the sixth, cultural epoch, and that we must prepare ourselves for this, because everything that is to come in the future must already have its seeds in the past. And everything that must come in the course of human development will, through our understanding of the Gospel of John, find its full expression toward the seventh epoch, toward the onset of the new catastrophe. That is why it will be particularly important that we regard the Gospel of Mark as a book that can guide us in many things we must practice and in many things we must guard against. It is precisely the sentences of the Gospel of Mark, in their brevity and their concise style, that convey to us the significance of the Christ impulse for the human ego and the way this impulse takes root in the human ego.

[ 28 ] It is important that we realize that it is our task to comprehend Christ in the spirit, that we must understand how Christ will reveal himself at various points in the future. For our time, an attempt has been made to articulate this task in the passages of the Rosicrucian Mystery “The Gate of Initiation” in the words attributed to the seer Theodora. Here we have something like a recurrence of the event that Paul experienced before Damascus. And it would be nothing but an expression of the materialism of our time to believe that the Christ impulse is to be lived out once more in a physical human body. That we must guard against this, we can learn from the Gospel of Mark, which again represents a very special warning for our era. And even if some of what is contained in the Gospel of Mark already applied to the past, its statements nevertheless apply—particularly in the high moral sense indicated—to our immediate future. There we shall see, in the spiritual realm, the necessity of the spiritual influence that must emanate from spiritual science.

[ 29 ] If we grasp the following words spiritually in their true sense, we will be able to apply them directly to our own age and its immediate future: “For those days will be a time of distress such as has not been since the beginning of the creation that God created, nor ever will be.” We must apply these words to human understanding: all tribulation lies ahead in the future, which will express the True One in His spiritual truth. “And if the Lord had not shortened those days, nothing would be saved that is to be spiritual nourishment; but for the sake of the elect, He has shortened the days of these elect.” And then it says: “If anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘Look, there he is!’ do not believe it.” Thus, the Gospel of Mark points to a possible materialistic conception of the Christ. “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. But be on your guard! See, I have foretold everything to you!”

[ 30 ] The onslaught of materialism will be so powerful that it will be necessary for human souls to gain the strength that can truly withstand the word: False Christs and false prophets will appear! - But when people then say, “Here is the Christ!”—then those who have placed themselves under the right influence of spiritual science will also be able to heed the warning: “When they say to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’—do not believe it!”