The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] If you recall what, in a sense, was the main point and the main goal of yesterday’s discussions, you will be able to picture for yourself how very differently the human being lived in relation to their innermost being in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha and in the time after it. I did not attempt to provide a characterization, but rather I gave you examples from Spiritual Science—examples that show us souls of the old era and souls of the new era, characteristic examples through which we can perceive how certain souls from earlier times have transformed and metamorphosed themselves in the new era. The reason for such a tremendous transformation will only become clear to us from the overall meaning of this lecture series.

[ 2 ] Now, perhaps, we may begin by pointing out something that has already been mentioned frequently in our reflections on similar subjects: that the awakening, the full awakening of the human ego—the development and formation of which is the mission of the Earth—actually only began with the Mystery of Golgotha. It is not strictly accurate, but it is close enough to say that, if we go back very far in human evolution, we find that human souls are not yet truly individualized, but are still caught up in group-soul-like existence. This entanglement in group-soul existence is particularly the case with the more outstanding figures, so that one can say: A Hector, an Empedocles, are typical group-soul representatives of their entire human community; Hector, having grown out of what the soul of Troy is, is an image of the group soul of the Trojan people in a very specific form, certainly specialized, but just as rooted in the group soul as Empedocles. When they reincarnate in the post-Christian era, they are then faced with the necessity of living out ego-consciousness. The transition from group-soul-like existence to the living out of the individual soul is what provides such a powerful jolt forward. And this is what causes souls that stand as firmly closed as, for example, Hector, to appear wavering in the post-Christian era, as if they were not up to the task of life, like, for example, the soul of Hamlet, and that, on the other hand, a soul like that of Empedocles—which reappears in the post-Christian era as the soul of 16th-century Faust—seems to become a sort of adventurer and is placed in various situations from which it finds it very difficult to extricate itself, and which is misunderstood by fellow human beings, indeed by all of posterity.

[ 3 ] It has often been emphasized that, in the context of the development just described, what has already taken place from the events of Golgotha to the present day is not yet particularly significant. All of this is only just beginning, and it is only with the future of Earth’s development that the great impulses attributable to Christianity will come to the fore. It must be emphasized again and again: Christianity is only at the beginning of its great development. But if one wishes to place oneself within this great development, one must use one’s understanding to keep pace with the ever-increasing progress of the revelations and impulses that began with the founding of Christianity.

[ 4 ] Above all, we will have to learn something in the near future—and it doesn’t take much foresight to realize that we must learn something very specific, something that will serve as a good starting point for a deeper understanding of Christianity—we will have to learn to read the Bible in a completely new way. Today, there are still many obstacles to this. Part of the reason is that, in many circles, the understanding of the Bible is still approached in a somewhat saccharine and sentimental manner, so that the Bible is used not as a book of knowledge but as a handbook for all manner of personal emotional states. When someone needs a little encouragement for their personal circumstances, they immerse themselves in one chapter or another of the Bible, let one passage or another sink in, and rarely move beyond a personal relationship with the Bible. On the other hand, scholarship in recent decades—indeed throughout the entire 19th century—has greatly hindered a genuine understanding of the Bible by tearing it apart and claiming, for example, that the New Testament is a compilation of all sorts of things that were supposedly gathered together later, and that the Old Testament, too, is a compilation of very different elements that are said to have come together at various times. As a result, the Bible is said to consist of nothing but fragments that very easily give the impression of being an aggregate, a compilation, as if they had been “stitched together” over the course of time.

[ 5 ] Such scholarship is becoming popular, and it has already become popular today. It has already become a widely held view among many people that, for example, the Old Testament is composed of many individual parts. This view, however, stands in the way of what must come in the near future as a truly serious reading of the Bible. When this reading of the Bible takes place, then much of what will also need to be said from an anthroposophical perspective about the mysteries of the Bible will be understood much better. For example, one will have to learn to take everything up to the point where the Old Testament ends in the standard editions of the Bible as a whole. One must not allow oneself to be misled by anything that might be raised against the unity of the Old Testament. And if one does not proceed one-sidedly from the standpoint of seeking personal edification, of reading this or that from this perspective, but rather if one allows the Old Testament, as it stands, to take effect as a whole and combines the view of its content with what, as you have been able to see sufficiently through our development in Spiritual Science of recent years, will come into the world precisely through Spiritual Science, and if one combines this—but spiritually—with a certain spiritual-artistic sense, so that one sets out to see how things follow one another artistically, how they are artistically composed, how the threads intertwine and unravel, not so much in the outwardly compositional sense, but when one applies the deeply artistic to something like the Old Testament, only then will one come to realize what immense dramatic power, what inner, spiritual-dramatic power actually lies in the composition and structure of the entire Old Testament. Only then will one be able to view the magnificent dramatic tableau as a unity, as a whole, and no longer believe that one part comes from here and another from there; rather, one will then perceive the unified spirit within the Bible.

[ 6 ] One will see that it is a progression entirely governed by a unified spirit, beginning with the time of the first creation narrative, through the patriarchal era, through the time of the Judges, through the time of the Jewish kings, until everything converges in a marvelous dramatic climax in the Book of Maccabees, in the sons of Mattathias, the brothers of Judas, who fight against King Antiochus of Syria. There is an inner dramatic power in this. A certain culmination is then reached at the end. And one will feel that it is not merely a figure of speech, a phrase, that a special feeling comes over the one equipped with the occult perspective when he reaches the end of this book, where he has before him the seven sons of the Maccabean mother and the five sons of Mattathias. Five sons of Mattathias and seven sons of the Maccabean mother—this adds up to a remarkable number twelve, a number twelve that we also encounter elsewhere when we are introduced to the mysteries of evolution. The number twelve at the end of the Old Testament, presented as a culmination! At first, a certain feeling may come over us when the seven sons of the Maccabees die as martyrs. How they are tortured one by one, yet how they rise up one by one—read the inner drama contained therein!—how the first merely hints at what is ultimately expressed in the seventh as the confession of the soul’s immortality, how he hurls these words at the king: “You wicked man, you want to know nothing of the One who raises my soul!” Let this dramatic crescendo from son to son sink in, and you will see what powers are contained in the Bible (2 Macc. 7). When one considers this dramatic and artistic insight in contrast to the previously saccharine and sentimental mode of contemplation, the Bible naturally reveals itself to us as something that will simultaneously inspire religious fervor. Thus, through the Bible, art becomes religion. And then one will begin to notice quite peculiar things.

[ 7 ] Perhaps most of you recall—since it has also been described here—that in my examination of the Gospel of Luke, I explained how the entire magnificent figure of Christ Jesus actually emerged from the union of two souls, the souls of two boy Jesuses. The soul of one of them was none other than that of Zarathustra, the founder of Zoroastrianism; so that you may still have this fact before your mind’s eye: that the Jesus-child described in the Gospel of Matthew is, first and foremost, the reincarnated Zarathustra. The soul of Zarathustra lived in this Jesus-child.

[ 8 ] What is the actual fact here? We have the founder of Zoroastrianism, the great initiate of antiquity, of the ancient Persian culture, who, passing through human evolution to a certain point, then reappears within the ancient Hebrew people: we have the transition from the ancient Persian culture to the element of the ancient Hebrew people via the soul of Zoroaster. Yes, the outer events—what happens in world history, what happens in human life—are, in essence, merely the revelation, the expression of inner spiritual processes, of inner spiritual forces; so that, in truth, one can study what external history recounts by viewing it as an expression of the inner spiritual, of the facts that move within the spiritual realm.

[ 9 ] Let us keep this in mind: Zarathustra moves from the Persian realm into the ancient Hebrew element. And now—one need only look at the chapter headings of the Old Testament—let us consider the Old Testament. That Zarathustra is as I described him back then is a finding of clairvoyant research; this becomes evident when one traces the soul of Zarathustra. But now let us contrast this finding not only with the Bible, as it is presented therein, but also with what is substantiated by external research.

[ 10 ] The ancient Hebrew people establish their kingdom in Palestine. The original kingdom splits apart. First comes the Assyrian captivity, then the Babylonian captivity. The ancient Hebrew people are subjugated by the Persians. What does all this mean? Yes, events in world history do indeed have a meaning. They follow inner processes, follow spiritual and psychological processes. Why did all this happen? Why were the ancient Hebrew peoples led in such a way that they were taken from Palestine into the Chaldean, the Assyrian-Babylonian, and the Persian spheres, and then liberated again by Alexander the Great? If one wishes to put it bluntly, one can say that it is merely the outer transition of Zarathustra from the Persian element into the Jewish element. The Jews brought him to themselves; they were led to him until they were subjugated by the Persian element, because Zarathustra wanted to come to them. Outer history is a marvelous imprint of these processes. And anyone who views the matter from a perspective of Spiritual Science knows that external history is merely the vehicle for Zarathustra’s transition from the Persian element, which, in essence, initially encompassed the ancient Hebrew element. And then, after this had been sufficiently encompassed by the Persian element, it was removed by Alexander the Great, and what remained was the milieu necessary for Zarathustra. This passed from one tribe to another.

[ 11 ] If we—though we can, of course, only highlight individual points—take a look at the entire period, as it came to a head in ancient Hebrew history through the era of the kings, the era of the prophets, the Babylonian Exile, the Persian conquest, and on into the Maccabean period, then, especially as we seek to understand the Gospel of Mark—which begins with a quote from Isaiah as a prophetic utterance—the element of the Jewish prophets immediately strikes us. One might say that, beginning with Elijah, whose reincarnation is John the Baptist, the prophets appear before us in a marvelous grandeur.

[ 12 ] Let us leave Elijah and his reincarnation in John the Baptist aside for the moment, and consider the names of the prophets who came between them. Here we must say: With what we have gained through Spiritual Science, this Jewish prophetic tradition can be viewed in a very unique way. What are we actually talking about when we speak of the great spiritual leaders of the Earth in ancient times? Of the Initiates, of those who have been initiated. We know that these initiates attained their spiritual heights by passing through the various stages of initiation, by working their way up from stage to stage through knowledge to spiritual vision, that through this they attained union with the spiritual impulses active in the world and thereby incorporated the impulses they themselves received in the spiritual world into life on the physical plane. Therefore, when we encounter an initiate from the Persian, Indian, or Egyptian peoples, we will first ask: How did this individual ascend the ladder of initiation within this ethnic group, within this tribe? How did he become a leader and thus the spiritual guide of his people? This question is justified everywhere, except when we consider the prophets. There is, admittedly, a certain theosophical school that likes to lump everything together and speaks of the prophets of the ancient Hebrews in the same way as of the initiates of other peoples; but this reveals nothing.

[ 13 ] One need only take up the Bible—and recent historical research has indeed shown that it is not an untrustworthy but a trustworthy document—and look at the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi, through Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and consider what the Bible says about these figures, then one will see that they cannot be placed within the general framework of initiation. Where, indeed, is it stated that the Jewish prophets underwent the same path of initiation as the other initiates of the remaining peoples? It is said that they appeared when the voice of God stirred within their souls, enabling them to see things that ordinary people could not, enabling them to provide information about the future course of their people’s destiny, and also about the future course of world history. This welled up spontaneously from the prophets’ souls. It is not recounted in the same way that they underwent initiation as with the other prophets, for whom one can demonstrate how they underwent initiation. The Jewish prophets appear in such a way that their spiritual vision stands forth as if from a genius, that which they have to say to their people, that which they have to say to humanity. And so, too, is their manner of invoking their prophetic voice and their prophetic gifts. Just observe how a prophet, when he has something to say, speaks of God having communicated it to him through His intermediaries, or that it has come as an immediate, elemental truth. This gives rise to the question: What is the situation with these Jewish prophetic figures, who outwardly stand alongside the initiates of other peoples, if we are to set aside Elijah and his reincarnation, the Baptist? If one examines the souls of these prophets from a perspective of Spiritual Science and occultism, one comes upon something very remarkable. If you try to compare critically what I am now sharing with you as a result of Spiritual Science research with everything that history and religious tradition have to say about these figures, you will already find confirmation.

[ 14 ] If one traces the souls of the Jewish prophets, one finds that they are reincarnations of initiates who were initiated among other peoples and had already ascended certain stages of initiation there. So when we trace back one of the Jewish prophets, we come to other peoples. There we find an initiated soul who had remained with that people for a long time; it then passed through the gate of death and was reincarnated among the Jewish people. And all the individual figures of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, and so on—if we wish to find their souls in earlier incarnations, we must seek them among other peoples. Put simply, it is truly as if the initiates of other peoples were gradually gathering among the Jewish people, where the initiates appear in the form of prophets. But then it becomes understandable that the prophets appear in such a way that their prophetic gift appears as an elemental manifestation of their inner being. It is the memory of what they acquired as initiates here or there. This emerges, but it also emerges in such a way that it does not always have to display that clear, harmonious form it had in earlier incarnations. For the soul that was incarnated in a Persian or Egyptian body will first have to adapt to the physicality of the Jewish people. Thus, some things that were already present within them in the past will not be able to emerge. For it is not the case that, as a person progresses from incarnation to incarnation, what was present in them before is always present; rather, something that was already there may appear disharmonious or chaotic due to the difficulties posed by physicality.

[ 15 ] Thus we see how the Jewish prophets gave their people a wealth of spiritual impulses that are often disordered yet magnificent recollections of earlier initiation. This is the distinctive feature that strikes us about these Jewish prophets. And why does this happen? It happens for no other reason than that the entire development of humanity had to pass through this point; for what had been achieved in a scattered manner was to be gathered together as if at a focal point and reborn from the blood of the Old Testament people. Hence, throughout the history of the ancient Hebrew people—as with no other people (this was the case only with tribes, but not with peoples who had already become “nations”)—the sense of belonging, the flow of blood through the generations, is emphasized. Everything that constitutes the world-historical mission of the Old Testament people rests upon the continuity of the flow of blood through the generations. That is why the one who is to belong fully to the Jewish people is always called a son of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—that is, of that element which first manifested itself in the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It was this flowing blood into which the initiatory elements of the various other peoples were to incarnate. Like rays coming from different directions and converging at a central point, so the initiatory rays of the various peoples gathered, as it were, at a central point in the blood of the ancient Hebrew people. The psychic aspect of human evolution had to pass through this at some point. It is important that we take this occult fact into account; for only then can one understand how something like the Gospel of Mark is founded, right from its very beginning, on the element of the Old Testament.

[ 16 ] But what actually happens when these elements of initiation from various peoples are gathered into this one center? We shall yet see why this happens. But if we now take up the entire dramatic course of the Old Testament again, we will notice how, through this incorporation of the initiatory elements of the various peoples, the idea of immortality gradually takes shape within the development of the Old Testament, appearing at its zenith precisely in the sons of the Maccabees. But we must now, one might say, allow it to take effect upon our souls in all its original significance—in such a way that we thereby take into account the human consciousness in its relationship to the spiritual world.

[ 17 ] I would like to draw your attention to something. Try to trace the passages in the Old Testament where it is spoken of the divine element shining into human life. How often is it recounted, for example in the Book of Tobit: Whenever something is to happen—such as when Tobit sends his son out to carry out some errand—the archangel Raphael appears to him in what seems to be human form (Tob. 5). In another passage, other supernatural beings from the higher hierarchies appear. It is an intervention of the divine-spiritual element into the human world, an intervention that occurs in such a way that the human being clearly perceives the divine-spiritual element as an external reality, that it confronts him in the external world. In the Book of Tobit, Raphael approaches the one he is to guide just as one human being approaches another, by physically approaching him. We will see many times, as we go through the Old Testament, that relationships with the spiritual world are regulated in this way. There are very many passages in the Old Testament where such things are spoken of. But we see a quite dramatic progression as it unfolds. And a climax of this dramatic progression finally confronts us in the martyrdom of the seven Maccabean sons, who speak from within their souls of the unity, indeed of the awakening of their souls in the divine element. An inner certainty of the souls regarding their inner immortality confronts us in the Maccabean sons and also in the two brothers of Judas Maccabeus, who even in the final days defend their people against King Antiochus of Syria. The spiritual element is grasped ever more deeply. And the dramatic progression becomes all the more significant as we trace the Old Testament from the appearance of God in the burning bush to Moses—where we see how the distinctive nature of God’s approach is an external one—up to what springs forth from the sons of the Maccabees as an inner certainty that, if they die here, they will be raised up in the kingdom of their God through what lives within them.

[ 18 ] This is a tremendous development that reveals a unified inner core in the Old Testament. In this way, the Old Testament says nothing at the outset about whether this part of the human soul—which is received by the Godhead and incorporated into the divine world—is then truly raised up, even though the consciousness of being accepted by God, of being, as it were, taken from the earth by God, and of being a member of the Godhead is present. However, the entire process unfolds in such a way that the awareness grows ever more and more that the human soul, through what it is, does indeed grow into the spiritual element. A passive attitude toward the God Yahweh or Jehovah gradually gives way to an active inner awareness of the soul regarding its own nature. This unfolds as a progression that moves from one part of the Old Testament to the next. The idea of immortality is born, but it is born only gradually as the Old Testament unfolds.

[ 19 ] And, curiously enough, the same progression is evident in prophecy. Notice how the visions and promises of each successive prophet become ever more inward: yet another dramatic element of marvelous intensification! The further back we go into the past, the more there is spoken of visions relating to external events; and the further we go forward in time, the more the prophets speak of inner strength, inner confidence, and a sense of oneness with the spiritual-divine.

[ 20 ] Thus it gradually builds up until the Old Testament leads us to the beginning of the New Testament. And the Gospel of Mark, of course, ties directly into all these circumstances. For the Gospel of Mark states right at the beginning that it intends to understand the event of Christ Jesus entirely in the spirit of the ancient prophetic tradition, so that one can, as it were, grasp the appearance of Christ Jesus by considering the words of the prophet Malachi, or rather the prophet Isaiah: “Behold, I send my messenger before you, who shall prepare your way. A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’ ” (1:2–3). In this way, as in a fundamental theme running through the history of the Old Testament, the appearance of Christ Jesus is pointed to. And further on in the Gospel of Mark—one can hear it quite clearly in the words, if one is willing—it is said: Yes, just as the prophets spoke, so now, in essence, one speaks again: the Baptist. — And how complete, how magnificent the figure of the Baptist stands there, when we perceive him characterized in this way: The ancient prophets spoke of a messenger of God, spoke of how he would show the way in solitude, the way that Christ Jesus must take through the development of the world.

[ 21 ] The Gospel of Mark then continues: “Then John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness and preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (1:4); for this is how the words must be translated if one is to render them accurately. Thus it is said: Turn your gaze to the ancient prophetic tradition, which has established itself in a new relationship with the Deity, in a new belief in immortality, and look at the figure of John the Baptist, how he appeared and spoke of the kind of development through which one recognizes human sinfulness. This likewise points to a great figure in this Baptist.

[ 22 ] But then there is the wondrous figure of Christ Jesus himself—how is he presented to us in the Gospel of Mark with a dramatic intensification that, one might say, is found nowhere else in the world in such a form that is at once so simple and so magnificent! I ask you to truly turn your spiritual gaze toward this. What is said? It is spoken of in this way: Turn your gaze to the figure of the Baptist; you will only understand him if you take into account the figures of the ancient Jewish prophets, whose voice has come alive in him. The entire Jewish people went out to him to be baptized by him; that is to say, there were many who recognized that the ancient prophetic tradition spoke through John the Baptist. This is stated right at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark. We see John the Baptist standing before us, see the voice of the ancient prophetic tradition come alive in him, see the people going out to him, and see how he—let us remain within the Gospel of Mark for now—is recognized by the people as the resurrected prophet. That is the first point. And now the figure of Christ Jesus himself enters the scene. Let us first set aside the so-called baptism of John in the Jordan, let us set aside what follows the baptism of John and also the story of the temptation, and let us take in the magnificent dramatic crescendo that confronts us precisely in the Gospel of Mark.

[ 23 ] After John the Baptist has been introduced and it has been shown how people respond to him and his mission, Christ Jesus himself is introduced. But how? At first, he is presented in such a way that he is simply there; but it is not only people who recognize him—other beings recognize him as well. That is what matters. There are people around him who want to be healed of the demonism in which demons are at work. There stand people who are not merely inhabited by human souls, but who are possessed by supernatural spirits working through them. And now, at a significant point, it is said that these spirits recognize Christ Jesus (1:23–26). People recognize the Baptist and go out and have themselves baptized by him. The supernatural spirits recognize Christ, so that he must command them not to speak of him. He is recognized by beings who are of the supernatural world. It is thus said: Here enters a being who is not merely recognized by humans, but who is recognized in his appearance and is regarded as dangerous by supernatural beings. This is the magnificent climax that confronts us right at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark: on the one hand, John the Baptist, who is recognized and revered by people, and on the other hand, the one who is recognized and feared by supersensible beings—who nevertheless have a connection to the earth—so that they realize they must now withdraw. This is Christ Jesus. Nowhere else is there such a dramatic climax in such simplicity. When one takes this to heart, one perceives certain things as necessary that otherwise simply pass human souls by. I would like to draw your attention to just one passage that—because the Gospel of Mark is so simple and so great—stands out most in the Gospel of Mark. Do you remember how, right at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, when the calling of the Twelve is discussed and the naming of the apostles is mentioned, he calls two of his apostles the “Sons of Thunder” (3:17)? This is not something one can simply gloss over; it is something one must take note of if one wishes to understand the Gospel. Why does he call them the Sons of Thunder? Because, in order for them to become his servants, he wants to implant in them an element that is not of the earth, that comes from outside the earth, because it is the Gospel from the realms of the Angeloi and Archangeloi, because it is something entirely new, and because it is no longer enough to speak merely of human beings, but of a heavenly, supernatural element—the I—and because it is necessary to emphasize this. He calls them “sons of thunder” to show that even his own have a connection to the supernatural element. The next world, which is linked to ours, is the elemental world, through which alone can be explained what comes into play in our world. And Christ gives his disciples names that signify that our world borders on a next, supernatural one. He gives them epithets derived from the qualities of the elemental world. The same is true when he calls Simon the “Rock” (3:16). Here again, reference is made to the supersensible. Thus, throughout the entire Gospel, the coming of the “Angelium”—the impulses from the spiritual world—is announced.

[ 24 ] To understand this, one need only read carefully; one need only assume that the Gospel is also a book from which the deepest wisdom can be drawn. All the progress that has been made consists in the fact that souls are becoming individualized, that they no longer relate to the supersensible world merely indirectly through group soulhood, but through the element of the individual soul. And he who steps before humanity in such a way that he is recognized among earthly beings, yet is also recognized by the supersensible beings, requires, in order to instill into the souls of those who are to serve him, something of a supersensible element, and of the finest human element. He needs those people who, in the old way, have already come the farthest in their own souls.

[ 25 ] It is fascinating in the highest sense to trace the spiritual development of those whom Christ Jesus gathers around him, whom he calls to be his Twelve—those who, one might say, when they appear before us in their simplicity, have undergone in the most magnificent way what I sought to show you yesterday in the case of human souls in more widely separated incarnations. Human beings must first find their way into the individual. At first, they may find it difficult to find their bearings there when they are transferred from what has taken root in their souls within the element of national character to a state of being left to their own devices. It was the Twelve. They were deeply rooted in a folk culture that had just re-established itself in the most magnificent way as a folk culture. And they stood there as if with a naked soul, with a simple soul, when Christ found them again. Here we are dealing with quite irregular intervals between incarnations. Christ’s gaze could focus on the Twelve: those souls reappeared who had been embodied in the seven Maccabean sons (see 207) and in the five sons of Mattathias, in Judas and his brothers; from these the Apostolate was composed. They were cast into the milieu of fishermen and simple folk; but at the time when the Jewish element had risen to a culminating point, they were imbued with the awareness that this element was the supreme power at that time, yet merely power, whereas it now appeared in an individualized form as it gathered around the Christ.

[ 26 ] One could have a mental image of someone who is a complete non-believer and yet wishes to consider, from a purely artistic perspective, how the numbers seven and five appear at the end of the Old Testament and how the number twelve is found again at the beginning of the New Testament. If one takes this purely as an artistic-compositional element, one can already be moved by the simplicity and artistic grandeur of the biblical book, quite apart from the fact that the Twelve are composed of the five sons of Mattathias and the seven sons of the Maccabean mother.* One will have to learn to regard the Bible as a work of art as well; only then will one begin to grasp the sense of the greatness that is embedded in the Bible as a work of art. And one will gain a sense of what it is that the artistic elements embedded therein must refer to.

[ 27 ] Perhaps one more point should be noted here. Among the five sons of Mattathias is one who is already named Judas in the Old Testament. He is the one who fights most vigorously for his people at that time, who is wholly devoted to his people with all his soul, and who also succeeds in concluding an alliance with the Romans against King Antiochus of Syria (1 Macc. 8). This Judas is the very same man who later has to undergo the trial of committing betrayal, because he, who is most intimately connected with the specifically ancient Hebrew element, cannot immediately find the transition to the Christian element and first needs the harsh trial of betrayal. If one considers the purely artistic and compositional aspects again, there is a truly remarkable contrast between the—one might say—grand figure of Judas in the final chapters of the Old Testament and the figure of Judas in the New Testament. And what is remarkable in this symptomatic process is that the Judas of the Old Testament makes a pact with the Romans, foreshadowing everything that later took place, namely the path that Christianity took through Roman culture in order to enter the world. This is, one might say, the further elaboration. And if I were to add what can indeed be known, but which cannot be said in a lecture before such a large audience, you would see how it is precisely through the later reincarnation of this Judas that the fusion of the Roman element with the Christian element takes place, and how the reincarnated Judas is the first who, so to speak, achieves great success in the spread of Romanized Christianity, and how the Old Testament Judas’s covenant with the Romans is the prophetic foreshadowing of what a later figure does—one who appears to the occultist as the reincarnated Judas, who had to undergo the harsh soul trial of betrayal. And what then manifests itself through his later work as Christianity within Romanism and Romanism within Christianity at the same time appears as a renewal, transposed into the spiritual realm, of the Old Testament Judas’s alliance with the Romans.

[ 28 ] When one is confronted with such things, one gradually comes to realize: From a spiritual perspective, setting everything else aside, the greatest work of art that has ever existed is human evolution itself. One simply needs to have an eye for it. But is it really so unreasonable to demand this insight into the human soul? I think that when someone watches one drama or another—one with a clear dramatic build-up and resolution—if they lack the ability to see through the structure, they can only perceive the drama as a succession of events that can be described one after another. This is roughly how external world history unfolds. However, no work of art emerges from human history in this way, but only a succession of events. Now, however, humanity has already reached the turning point where we must grasp the inner, progressive shaping of these events, their entanglement and resolution within human evolution. Then it will become clear that human evolution itself shows us how, at this point or that point, individual figures appear, provide impulses, create knots, and untie knots. And one only begins to recognize humanity’s place within human evolution when one understands the historical course in this way.

[ 29 ] But then, because the whole is elevated from a state of mere aggregation to an organism—and to more than just an organism—one must truly put each element in its proper place and make the distinction that people in other fields take for granted. For it would never occur to an astronomer to equate the Sun with the other planets. It is self-evident to him that he must single out the Sun and set it apart as a monon in relation to the planets. So it is self-evident to one who understands the development of humanity to place a “Sun” among the great leaders of humanity. And just as it would be a complete absurdity to speak of the Sun of our planetary system in the same way as of Jupiter, Mars, and so on, so it is an absurdity to speak of the Christ in the same way as of the Bodhisattvas and the other leaders of humanity. This should be so self-evident that any reincarnation of the Christ appears as something absurd, as something that cannot even be spoken of, if one simply considers the matter clearly. But it is necessary to truly engage with these matters, to truly grasp them in their true form, and not to present them as this or that dogma, as this or that sectarian belief. It is not necessary, when speaking of Christology in the real, cosmological sense, to speak of giving preference to Christianity over another religion. That would be like if a religion somewhere had in its sacred writings that the sun is a planet like the other planets, and then someone were to come along and say: The sun must be singled out from among the planets—and the others would now rebel against this and say: But that is giving preference to the sun! That is not the case at all, but merely a recognition of the truth itself.

[ 30 ] And so it is with Christianity. It is merely a recognition of the truth—a truth that every religion on earth today can accept, if only it is willing to do so. And if other religions take seriously the equal recognition of all religious creeds—if they do not use this equal recognition merely as a figurehead—then they will also take no offense at the fact that the West has not adopted a national god, but rather a God who initially has nothing to do with any nationality, who is a cosmic being. The Indians speak of their national gods. It goes without saying that they must speak differently from people who have not adopted and assert a Germanic national god, but who place at their center an entity that has truly not incarnated on their soil, but was incarnated far from them among another people. One could speak of a contrast between the Christian-Western principle and an Indian-Eastern one if, for example, someone were to place Wotan above Krishna. But with Christ, it is not at all like that. From the very beginning, he has not belonged to any one people, but rather he embodies what is most beautiful in the principle of Spiritual Science: recognizing the truth without distinction of color, race, tribe, and so on.

[ 31 ] We must bring ourselves to view these things objectively. And if we come to know the Gospels by recognizing what underlies them, only then will we truly understand them. From what has been said today about the Gospel of Mark—with its sublime simplicity and dramatic progression from the personality of John the Baptist to that of Christ Jesus—one can see what this Gospel actually contains.