The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] It was suggested yesterday that it is now important for us to answer the question: What actually happened to that being whom we call Christ Jesus, from the time of his baptism by John in the Jordan River up to the Mystery of Golgotha? To answer this question as far as is initially possible, we will briefly recall what we know from earlier lectures about the life of Jesus of Nazareth, who then became the Christ-bearer in his thirtieth year. In a few words, the essentials are also outlined in my recently published work on “The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and of Humanity.”

[ 2 ] We know that in Palestine, during the period in question, not one but two boys named Jesus were born; one of them was born into the Solomonic line of the House of David. This is essentially the same child Jesus of whom the Gospel of Matthew tells. The peculiar contradiction at the beginning of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke stems precisely from the fact that the information provided by the writer of the Gospel of Matthew refers to one Jesus child, the one from the Solomonic line of the House of David. Then, not quite, but fairly simultaneously, another Jesus child was born from the Nathanic line of the House of David. The important thing now is to understand what kind of beings these were. Occult research shows that the individuality that was in the Solomonic Jesus-child is none other than that of Zarathustra. After his primary mission, which we discussed in connection with the ancient Persian culture, Zarathustra had incarnated again and again, most recently within the Babylonian-Chaldean culture, and then precisely as this Solomonic Jesus child. It was necessary for this Zarathustra individuality to first incarnate, with all the great, powerful inner forces it naturally brought with it from earlier incarnations, in a body that originated from the Solomonic line of the House of David, and which was suited to assimilate Zarathustra’s great abilities and develop them in the way that human abilities—already at a very high level—can be developed, insofar as they belong to the being that passes from incarnation to incarnation. It is therefore a human body that can now process these abilities not only at a later age, but within a youthful, childlike, and vigorous constitution. We therefore see the Zarathustra individuality growing up in such a way that the boy’s abilities develop relatively early. This boy even displayed certain knowledge at an early age that would otherwise be impossible at such a young age. But we must note one thing: that this Solomonic Jesus-boy, even though he was the embodiment of such a high individuality—that is, a highly evolved human being—was, in the same way as even the most highly evolved human being, prone to certain capacities for error, and to certain capacities for moral difficulties, if not exactly to vices or sins. Then we know that the individuality of Zarathustra, in the sense of an occult process known to anyone who has familiarized themselves with such facts at all, left the body of the Solomonic Jesus-child in the twelfth year and passed over into the body of the Nathanic Jesus-child. Now the body of this Nathanic Jesus-child—or rather, the threefold physicality: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body of this child—was constituted in a very special way. For this body was in fact such that the child who possessed it displayed precisely the opposite capacities to those of the Solomonic Jesus-child. While the latter stood out for his great talent regarding external things—things that can be learned externally—one could almost say—and you will understand that this is not meant in the least derogatory way—that the Nathanic Jesus-child was untalented regarding external things. He was not able to find his way into those things that human culture has created on Earth. In contrast, what stands out is that he was able to speak right from birth. So what is more physical manifested itself as an ability already present from birth. It is a perfectly accurate tradition that he spoke, albeit in a language incomprehensible to all other people. But regarding what was present in this very language from birth—and this is a reliable tradition that can also be verified occultly—it is said that the mother was able to understand what this boy was saying. It is the case that the very qualities in the boy that we might call qualities of the heart were particularly pronounced; an immense capacity for love and an immensely devoted nature distinguished this boy. And the remarkable thing was that from the very first day of his life, through his mere presence or even through his touch, he exerted beneficial effects—effects that today one might perhaps call magnetic effects. Thus all the qualities of the heart—and these qualities so heightened that they could become a magnetic blessing for his surroundings—were evident in this boy.

[ 3 ] We also know that the forces at work in this boy’s astral body were those once acquired by the Bodhisattva who later became Gotama Buddha. We know, after all—and in this regard the Eastern tradition is absolutely correct, for it can be verified by esoteric science—that the Bodhisattva, who half a millennium before our era, upon becoming a Buddha, had lost the necessity to continue incarnating in physical bodies on Earth, from that point on worked, initially, upon all those who devoted themselves to his teachings, but now only from the spiritual world. This is the distinctive feature of such an individuality that ascends to the height where it is no longer incarnated in a physical body: that it can then participate in the affairs and destinies of our earthly existence from the spiritual worlds. This can occur in the most manifold ways. In fact, the Bodhisattva, who had his last physical incarnation on Earth as Gotama Buddha, essentially participated in the further development of humanity. For let us be clear about this: our human spiritual world is constantly connected with the entire rest of the spiritual world. Let us be clear that human beings do not merely eat and drink, thereby taking in the substances of the physical earth, but continually receive spiritual nourishment from the spiritual world; that forces continually flow into physical, earthly existence from the spiritual worlds in the most diverse ways. Such an inflow of the forces that the Buddha had acquired into the wider stream of humanity took place through the Buddha-forces permeating the astral body of the Nathanic Jesus-child, so that what the Buddha had to give to humanity in his form at that time was active within the astral body of this child. We also know from earlier lectures that, in essence, the words we still have today as a Christmas message: “Revelation is to be recognized from the heights of the worlds, and peace will spread on earth in the hearts of those who are of good will!” stem from what flowed down into human evolution through the Buddha forces entering the astral body of the Nathanic Jesus child. Thus we see the Buddha forces continuing to work in the stream of earthly existence that had its starting point in the events of Palestine. These Buddha forces have continued to work ever since. And it is, after all, very interesting that it is precisely the more recent occult research conducted in Western occultism in the very last few years that has led to the recognition that there is a very important connection between European culture and the Buddha forces. For a long time now, these Buddha forces have been working in from the spiritual worlds, specifically on everything in Western culture that would be unthinkable without the specifically Christian influence. Thus, all those currents of worldview that we have seen develop over the past centuries up to the nineteenth century—insofar as they are Western spiritual currents—are all permeated by the Christ impulse, yet the Buddha has always been at work from the spiritual world. Therefore, we may say: The most important thing that European humanity can receive from the Buddha today must not stem from the tradition of what the Buddha gave to humanity half a millennium before the Christian era, but from what he has become since then. For he has not remained static, but has progressed; and it is precisely through this progress as a spiritual being in the spiritual worlds that he has been able to participate in the highest sense in the further development of Western culture. It is indeed a finding within our occult research that much of what we may have encountered earlier, before this important influence was thoroughly re-examined, corresponds in a wondrous way to precisely this result. For we know that the same individuality who appeared as Gotama Buddha in the East had already once worked in the West, and that certain legends and traditions linked to the names Bodha or Wotan have to do with the same individuality as Buddhism has with Gotama Buddha in the East; so that, in a certain sense, the same stage is being reoccupied that had already been prepared earlier by the same individuality in relation to human development. So intricate are the paths taken by the spiritual currents within human development.

[ 4 ] What is most important for us today is that the Buddha forces are at work in the astral body of the Luke Jesus child. When this Jesus-child was twelve years old, the Zarathustra individuality passed into the threefold physicality of this Nathanic Jesus-child. Where did it come from, then, that this Jesus-child possessed the remarkable qualities we have just described? It was precisely because this Jesus child was not a human individuality like any other. This individuality was, in a certain sense, quite different, and to understand it, we must go back to the ancient Lemurian era, in which, strictly speaking, the earthly development of humanity truly began. We must be clear that everything that preceded the Lemurian era was, in fact, merely a repetition of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon stages of existence, and that it was only then that the first seed—as a possibility—was planted in human beings, enabling them to assume the fourth member of their being in Earth’s evolution: the I. If we consider the entire course of human development, we must say: Humanity, as it has spread across the Earth—you have described this spread in greater detail in *Outlines of Esoteric Science*—can be traced back in the Lemurian period to certain human ancestors of this early period of our present Earth. And in doing so, we must establish a point in the Lemurian era after which one can truly speak of the human race in the modern sense. What came before cannot yet be discussed in such a way that one could say those “I’s” were already present in the Earth-human beings, which then continued to incarnate further and further. That was not the case. Before that, the human ego was by no means yet separated from the substance of that hierarchy which initially gave rise to this human ego—namely, the hierarchy of the Spirits of Form. We can now imagine—as occult research shows—that, as it were, a part of the substance of the Spirits of Form entered into human incarnations for the formation of the human ego. But when humanity was entrusted with its physical incarnations on Earth, something was held back from what was to become human. Thus, an “I-substance,” so to speak, was retained that was not channeled into the stream of physical incarnations. If we were to imagine this stream of human incarnations, which begins with what the Bible calls the progenitor of the human race, Adam, we would have to draw a widely branching family tree. But we can simply imagine: what has flowed down from the spirits of form now flows on; only that something was, as it were, retained—as it were, an I that was now preserved from entering into the stream of physical incarnations—an I that did not always reappear as a human being, but retained that form, that substantiality, which the human being possessed before advancing to his first earthly incarnation. Thus, an I that lived on alongside the rest of humanity, and that up to the time of which we are now speaking—when the events in Palestine were to take place—had never yet been embodied in a human physical body, an I that was still in the same position as—if we were to speak in biblical terms—the I of Adam before his first earthly, physical embodiment. Such an I was always present.

[ 5 ] If we now touch briefly upon the occult insights regarding this “I”—which, of course, seem utterly “foolish” to modern people— we see that this ‘I’, which was, as it were, held in reserve, was not directed into a human body, but was actually only entrusted to the sacred mysteries as they existed throughout the Atlantean era and the post-Atlantean era. In an important place of the Mysteries, it was kept as in a tabernacle. This I thus possessed very special characteristics; it had the characteristic of being untouched by anything that a human I could ever have learned on Earth. It was thus also untouched by all Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences; it was, in fact, something we can imagine in relation to the other human I’s as an empty sphere, actually just as something that was still completely virgin with regard to all earthly experiences, a nothingness, a negative in relation to all earthly experiences. Therefore, it appeared as though that Nathanic Jesus-child described in the Gospel of Luke had no human ego at all, as though he consisted only of a physical body, an etheric body, and an astral body. And it is entirely sufficient to say at first: an ego as developed as that which had evolved through the Atlantean and post-Atlantean periods is not present at all in the Luke Jesus-child. We are speaking in the true sense of the word when we say: in the case of the Matthew Jesus-child, we are dealing with a fully developed human being; in the case of the Nathanic Jesus child of the Gospel of Luke, we are dealing with a physical body, etheric body, and astral body that are arranged in such a way as to harmoniously represent the human being as he emerged as a result of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions. Therefore, as the Akashic Records teach, this Jesus child was unskilled in everything that human culture had developed; he could not take it in because he had never been there. The external skills and abilities of existence are demonstrated because we have already been present during certain activities in earlier incarnations; someone who was never present proves to be unskilled in everything that humans have accomplished during Earth’s evolution. If the Nathanic Jesus child had been born into our time, he would have shown himself to be highly unskilled in learning to write, because people did not write in Adam’s time, and certainly not before that. Thus, for everything that was acquired only in the course of human development, the Luke Jesus child proved to be highly unskilled. In contrast, the inner qualities he had brought with him—which had otherwise actually fallen into decadence due to Luciferic influences—manifested themselves to a high degree. And the fact that this Jesus-child displayed a peculiar language is something even more interesting. For here we must consider something I also mentioned in my treatise on “The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and of Humanity”: that the languages spread across the earth today, those found among the various tribes, arose relatively late in human development; but they were preceded by what one could truly call a human proto-language. And it is the dividing spirits of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic worlds that have transformed the proto-language into the many languages of the world. The proto-language is lost and cannot be spoken today by any human being with an “I” that has passed from incarnation to incarnation in the course of Earth’s development. That Jesus child, who had not passed through human incarnations, was endowed from the very beginning of human development with the ability to speak—not this or that language, but a language of which it is claimed with some justification that it was incomprehensible to those around him, yet which was understood by his mother’s heart through the inner warmth that lived within it. This points to an immensely significant phenomenon in this Luke-Jesus boy.

[ 6 ] When this boy, the Jesus of Luke, was born, he was thus endowed with everything that had not been influenced by the Luciferic-Ahrimanic forces. He did not possess such an ego that had incarnated time and again; therefore, nothing needed to be cast out in his twelfth year of life, when the individuality of Zarathustra passed from the Solomonic Jesus-child of the Gospel of Matthew into the Nathanic Jesus-child. I said earlier that this part of humanity that had remained behind, which had developed alongside the rest of humanity in the mysteries up to that point, had actually been born for the first time in the Palestinian era as the Nathanic Jesus child. It was a transition from a Near Eastern mystery, where this human seed had been preserved, into the body of the Nathanic Jesus-child. Now this boy grew up, and in his twelfth year the individuality of Zarathustra took hold of him. We also know that this transition is hinted at to us through the scene of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple. It is understandable that the parents of the Nathanic Jesus child, who were accustomed to viewing this child as we have just described, must have found a remarkable change when they found the boy in the temple after having previously lost him. For that was the moment when the individuality of Zarathustra passed into the twelve-year-old boy, so that from the twelfth to the thirtieth year, we now find the individuality of Zarathustra in the boy Jesus of Luke.

[ 7 ] Now, in the Gospel of Luke, we find a curious statement that alludes to something that can only be understood through occult research. You know that in the Gospel of Luke, after the scene with the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple has been described, there is a passage: “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52). That is how it reads in Weizsäcker’s translation. Luther translates: “And Jesus grew in wisdom, age, and favor with God and man.” That doesn’t make much sense either. For if it says “Jesus grew in age,” I would like to know what it is supposed to mean that a twelve-year-old boy grows in age? All that is needed for that is for time to move forward! In truth, however, if we reconstruct the text of the Gospels from the Akashic Records, it states at this point that he grew in all that an astral body can grow in, namely in wisdom; that he grew in all that an etheric body can grow in, namely in all the qualities of goodness, benevolence, and so on; and then grew in all that a physical body can grow in, which pours itself into outward beauty. This is meant to indicate in a very special way that this boy Jesus, through the peculiarity he possessed until the age of twelve, had remained untouched; his individuality could not be affected at all by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces; because it was precisely not such an individuality that had passed from incarnation to incarnation. The Gospel of Luke indicates this quite particularly by tracing the line of generations back through Adam to God, thereby signifying that it was the substance that remained unaffected by everything that had passed through human evolution.

[ 8 ] And so this child Jesus grew up, increasingly attuned to all that is possible in the development of a threefold physicality that could not be affected by the very things that affect other people’s threefold physicalities. And the Zarathustra individuality now had the opportunity to combine all the heights it had attained up to that point with all the wondrous qualities inherent in such a threefold physicality, because it was not deterred by anything, but could develop everything that an ideal physical body, an ideal etheric body, and an ideal astral body can develop in the outer world. This is what is implied by the passage from the Gospel of Luke that has just been cited. This made it possible that by the age of thirty, something had occurred in the development of this young man of which we can say: by the age of thirty, this individuality of Zarathustra was in a position to pour everything that can come from such a high individuality into this threefold human physicality. Thus, we form the correct conception of Jesus of Nazareth up to the age of thirty when we picture him as a high human individuality; precisely as an individuality for whose coming into being the greatest possible preparations have been made, as we have seen.

[ 9 ] But now we must be clear about one thing if we are to agree that the fruits of the development we undergo in our bodies benefit our individuality. Our bodies provide the opportunity for our individuality, as it were, to draw from life the fruits necessary for its further development. When we leave our bodies at death—specifically, at the death of an ordinary human being—we do not initially leave behind in the bodies what we have acquired and worked out within them as individuality. We shall see later under what special circumstances something may remain in the bodies; but the rule, the law, is not that the individuality leaves behind in the bodies what it has acquired. Thus, when Zarathustra leaves the threefold physicality of Jesus of Nazareth in the thirtieth year, he leaves behind the three bodies: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body. But everything that Zarathustra, as an individuality, was able to gain through these instruments enters into the individuality of Zarathustra, lives on with this individuality, which now emerges from the threefold physicality. This benefits this individuality. On the other hand, one thing has certainly been achieved in the threefold physicality of Jesus of Nazareth: namely, that human nature, as it was before the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, was connected to that individuality which had looked most profoundly into the spirituality of the macrocosm. For just think for a moment what this Zarathustra individuality had gone through! Once, when it first worked in the founding of the ancient Persian culture, gazing upward toward the great Sun Spirit, even then Zarathustra’s gaze reached into the vastness of the spiritual worlds. And through the subsequent incarnations, this very individuality developed further and further. — If the innermost core of human nature had come into being through the most intense forces of love and compassion, because a pure human substance had been preserved until the birth of the Nathanic Jesus, and then the astral body had further imbued itself with the forces of Gotama Buddha—if, then, what we might call the “innermost inner self” of the human being was present in the Nathanic Jesus—then, in the twelfth year, that human individuality which, among all human individualities, had looked most clearly and most deeply into the spirituality of the macrocosm united with this physical form. But through this, the instruments of the Nathanic Jesus were so transformed that they were now indeed capable, as instruments, of taking in the essence—the Christ-essence of the macrocosm. Had the individuality of Zarathustra not permeated this physicality by the age of thirty, its eyes would not have been able to bear the substance of the Christ from the age of thirty until the Mystery of Golgotha, nor would the hands have been able to permeate themselves with the substance of the Christ at the age of thirty. In order to be able to receive the Christ, this physicality had to be, as it were, prepared and expanded by the individuality of Zarathustra. Thus, in the Jesus of Nazareth, as he was at the moment when Zarathustra took leave of him and the Christ Individuality entered into him, we have before us neither an adept nor anything else of a higher human being. For an adept is an adept precisely because he possesses a highly developed individuality; but this has emerged precisely from the threefold physicality of the Jesus of Nazareth. We have merely prepared the threefold physicality through the presence of Zarathustra so that it could receive the Christ Individuality. But now, through the union of the Christ Individuality with this body we have just described, the following had become necessary.

[ 10 ] During the three years from John’s baptism in the Jordan to the actual Mystery of Golgotha, the physical development of the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body was entirely different from that of other human beings. Because Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces had not influenced the Nathanic Jesus in earlier incarnations, it was possible that from the baptism by John in the Jordan onward—since there was now not a human ego-individuality in this Jesus of Nazareth, but the Christ-individuality—all that which otherwise must always be at work in human physicality was not developed. We spoke yesterday about how what we call the human phantom—the actual archetype that takes in, absorbs the material elements, and then releases them at death—degenerated in the course of human development up to the Mystery of Golgotha. We can understand this degeneration in a certain way as follows: from the very beginning of human development, this phantom was actually destined to remain untouched by the material elements that humans take in as food from the mineral, plant, or animal kingdoms. The phantom was to remain untouched by these. But it had not remained untouched. For through the Luciferic influence, a close connection arose between the phantom and the forces that human beings take in through earthly development—especially with the ash components. This, then, was the consequence of the Luciferic influence: that the phantom, while accompanying the further development of humanity, developed a strong attraction to the ash components; and as a result, instead of accompanying the human etheric body, it now accompanied what are the products of decay. These were all the consequences of the Luciferic influences. And where the Luciferic influences were held back to such an extent, as was the case with the Nathanic Jesus—where, after all, there was no human ego, but where the cosmic Christ-being was present from the baptism by John onward—it became evident that no attractive forces were at work between the human phantom and what was taken up as material parts. The phantom remained untouched by the material parts throughout all three years. In occult terms, this is expressed by saying: Actually, the human phantom, as it had been formed through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods, should have no forces of attraction toward the ash components, but should only have an attraction to the dissolving salt components, so that it takes the path of volatilization to the extent that the salt components dissolve. In the occult sense, one would say that it dissolves and passes over—not into the earth, but into the volatile constituents. But that was precisely the point: that with the baptism of John in the Jordan, the transposition of the Christ Individuality into the body of the Nathanic Jesus, all connection of the phantom with the ash components had been destroyed and eradicated, and the only connection remained with the salt components. This also becomes evident where the Christ Jesus seeks to make clear to those he had initially chosen: Through the way you feel connected to the Christ Being, the possibility is to be brought about for further human development that the one body risen from the grave—the spiritual body—may pass over to humanity. — This is what Christ means when he uses the words: “You are the salt of the earth!” All these words, which are echoed in the terminology and artistic expressions of later alchemists and later occultism—all these words we find in the Gospels—have the deepest possible meaning. And indeed, it was precisely this meaning that was fully known to the medieval and also the post-medieval real alchemists—not the charlatans of whom literature tells—and no one spoke of these connections without feeling in their heart the connection with Christ.

[ 11 ] And so it turned out: When Christ Jesus was crucified, when his body was nailed to the cross—you will notice that I am speaking here in the exact words of the Gospel, for the simple reason that genuine occult research actually confirms the words of the Gospel absolutely—when this body of Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to the cross, the phantom was in fact completely intact, existing as a spiritual-physical form visible only supernaturally, and was in a much looser connection with the material content of the earthly elements than is the case with any human being. For the simple reason that in every other human being a connection has arisen between the phantom and the elements that holds these elements together. With Christ Jesus, it was in fact quite different. It was as if, I might say, according to the law of inertia, certain material parts still held together in the form given to them and then, after some time, disintegrated, so that hardly anything of them is visible. So it was with the material parts of the body of Christ Jesus. When he was taken down from the cross, the parts were, so to speak, still holding together, but they were in no connection with the phantom, because the phantom was completely free of them. When the body was then treated with certain substances—which acted upon this body quite differently than they would upon another body that is embalmed—it happened that the material substances rapidly dissipated after the burial, quickly returning to the elements. Therefore, the disciples who came to look found the cloths with which he had been covered—but the phantom, upon which the development of the I depends, had risen from the grave. That Mary Magdalene, who had known only the earlier phantom permeated by the elements of the earth, could not recognize the same figure in the phantom now freed from all earthly heaviness, which she now saw clairvoyantly, is not surprising. It appeared different to her. In particular, we must be clear that it was only through the power of the disciples’ being together with Christ that all the disciples and all the people of whom we are told could see the Risen One; for he appeared in the spiritual body, the body of which Paul says that it multiplies like a seed and passes into all people. But that Paul himself is also convinced that it was not the body permeated by earthly elements that appeared to the other disciples, but that the same thing that had appeared to him had also appeared to the other disciples, he says in this passage:

[ 12 ] “I passed this on to you first and foremost, as I myself received it: that Christ died for our sins, so that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day, in accordance with what has always been written in the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas [Simon Peter], then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at once, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one born out of due time, he appeared to me as well.” (1 Corinthians 15:3–8.)

[ 13 ] Christ appeared to Paul through the event at Damascus. And the fact that the manner in which he appeared to Paul is equivalent to the appearances to the other disciples testifies that Christ appeared to Paul in the same form as he did to the others. But what was it that convinced Paul?

[ 14 ] In a certain sense, Paul was already an initiate before the event at Damascus. But it was an initiation composed of the ancient Hebrew and the Greek principles. He was an initiate who, up to that point, knew only that those who had connected themselves to the spiritual world through initiation had become independent of the physical body in their etheric body and, in a certain way, could appear to those capable of perceiving them in the purest form of the etheric body. If Paul had merely experienced the appearance of a pure etheric body independent of the physical body, he would have spoken differently. He would have said that he had seen one who had been initiated and who, independent of the physical body, continues to live on with the development of the Earth. That would not have been particularly surprising to him. So that could not have been what he experienced before Damascus. What he experienced was what he knew could only be experienced once the Scriptures were fulfilled: that one day, in the spiritual atmosphere of the Earth, a complete human phantom—a human body risen from the grave—would be present as a supersensible form. But that was what he had seen! That was what appeared to him before Damascus and convinced him: He was there! He has risen! For what is there can come only from him: the phantom is there, visible to all human individuals seeking a connection with the Christ! — That was what convinced him that the Christ was already there, that he would not come only later, that he was truly in a physical body, and that this physical body had rescued the actual archetype of the physical body for the salvation of all humanity.

[ 15 ] That this act could only have come about through the fullest expression of divine love, and in what sense this act was an act of love, and in what sense the term “redemption” should be understood in the further development of humanity—we will discuss this tomorrow.