The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] This discussion must begin with the so-called Pentecost event. In the first lecture, I already indicated that the gaze of clairvoyant research can at least be directed toward this event first. For this event presents itself to the clairvoyant gaze directed backward as a kind of awakening that was experienced on a certain day—the very day that the Feast of Pentecost is meant to commemorate—by those individuals whom we usually call the apostles or disciples of Christ Jesus. It is not easy to conjure up a precise picture of all these undoubtedly strange phenomena, and we will have to recall, so to speak, from the depths of our souls, what has emerged for us from our previous anthroposophical reflections if we wish to connect precise images with all that is to be said today on this very topic of our lecture series.

[ 2 ] The apostles felt as if they were waking up, like people who, at that very moment, had the sensation that they had been living for a long time—many days on end—in a state of consciousness that was unfamiliar to them. It was indeed something like waking from a deep sleep, albeit a strange, dream-filled sleep—like a sleep that is, however, such that—I expressly note I am always speaking of the way it appeared to the apostles’ consciousness—in which one carries out all the outward activities of the day, walks about as a physically healthy person, so that, in a sense, even the other people one interacts with do not notice at all that one is in a different state of consciousness. Nevertheless, the moment came when it seemed to the Apostles as though they had spent a long period of time, lasting for days, as if in a dream-filled sleep, from which they now awoke with this Pentecost event. And they sensed this awakening in a peculiar way: they actually felt as if something had descended upon them from the universe, something that could only be called the substance of all-pervading love. The apostles felt as if they had been, so to speak, fertilized from above by all-pervading love and as if they had been roused from the dreamlike state of life described. They felt as if they had been awakened by that which, as the primal force of love that permeates and warms the universe, had descended upon them; as if this primal force of love had sunk into the soul of each individual. And to the other people who could observe them as they now spoke, they seemed quite strange. These other people knew that these were folk who had hitherto lived in an extraordinarily simple manner, though some of them had behaved somewhat strangely in recent days, as if lost in a dream, dazed. That was known. But now they seemed transformed to the people: like people who had indeed attained a completely new state of being, a completely new mood of the soul, like people who had lost all the narrowness of life, all the selfishness of life, who had gained an infinitely broad heart, a comprehensive tolerance within, a deep heartfelt understanding for everything that is human on earth, who could express themselves in such a way that everyone present understood them. One sensed, as it were, that they could look into everyone’s heart and soul and, from the deepest depths, discern the secrets of the soul, so that they could comfort everyone and say exactly what each person needed at that moment.

[ 3 ] It was, of course, most surprising to these observers that such a transformation could take place in a number of people. But these people themselves, who had experienced this transformation, who had been, as it were, raised up by the Spirit of Cosmic Love, these people now felt within themselves a new understanding, felt an understanding of that which had indeed taken place in the deepest communion with their souls, but which they had not grasped at the time it had occurred: Only now, at this moment, as they felt themselves imbued with cosmic love, did an understanding of what had actually happened on Golgotha arise before their soul’s eye. And when we look into the soul of one of these apostles, the one who is usually called Peter in the other Gospels, his inner soul presents itself to the clairvoyant gaze looking back in such a way that his normal earthly consciousness was, as it were, completely severed at that moment, from that moment onward which is usually referred to in the other Gospels as the denial. He looked back upon this scene of denial, when he had been asked whether he had any connection with the Galilean, and he now knew that he had denied it at the time because his normal consciousness had begun to subside, because an anomalous state had spread, a kind of dream state that signified a transport into a completely different world. He now felt on this Pentecost just as one feels upon waking in the morning and recalling the last events of the evening before falling asleep; so Peter recalled the last events before this abnormal state set in, that which is usually called the denial, the threefold denial, before the rooster had crowed twice. And then he remembered that that state spread over his soul, just as night spreads over the sleeper. But he also remembered how that intermediate state was filled not with mere “dream images,” but with forms that represented a kind of higher state of consciousness, that represented a shared experience of purely spiritual matters. And everything that had happened, everything Peter had, so to speak, slept through since that time, stepped before his soul as if from a clairvoyant dream. Above all, he now learned to see the event of which one can truly say that he had slept through it. He had not experienced it with his understanding, because full understanding of this event required fertilization by the all-pervading cosmic love. Now that this had taken place, the images of the Mystery of Golgotha appeared before his eyes. Thus they appeared before him, just as we too can experience them if we can evoke them with a retrospective, clairvoyant consciousness, if we create the conditions for it.

[ 4 ] To be honest: it is with a feeling that is quite peculiar that one resolves to put into words what unfolds before the clairvoyant consciousness when one looks into the consciousness of Peter and the others who were gathered at that Pentecost. One can only bring oneself to speak of these things with a sense of sacred awe. One might say that one is almost overwhelmed by the awareness that one is treading upon the holiest ground of human perception when one attempts to express in words what is revealed to the soul’s gaze. Nevertheless, given certain conditions of our time, it seems necessary to speak of these things; though with the full awareness that times will come different from our own, in which there will be greater understanding for what must be said about the Fifth Gospel than is possible today. For in order to understand much of what must be said on this occasion, the human soul must still free itself from various things that, out of necessity, still fill it today as a result of the culture of the times.

[ 5 ] When one looks back clairvoyantly at the events of Golgotha, the first thing that presents itself to the clairvoyant gaze is something that—if put into words—seems like a kind of insult to the current scientific mindset. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to put into words, as best I can, what is thus revealed to the clairvoyant gaze. I cannot help it if what must be said here should reach less prepared minds and souls, and the whole matter were to be blown out of proportion as something that could not stand up to the scientific views that currently dominate our time. The clairvoyant gaze first falls upon an image that represents a reality, one that is also hinted at in the other Gospels, but which nevertheless presents a very special sight when one sees it, as it were, stepping out from the abundance of images that the clairvoyant gaze can perceive in retrospect. This clairvoyant gaze indeed falls upon a kind of eclipse of the Earth. And one feels, as in this momentous moment that lasts for hours, how the physical sun was eclipsed over the land of Palestine, over the site of Golgotha. One has the same impression that the spiritually trained gaze can still verify today when a real external physical solar eclipse passes over the land. To the soul’s eye, the entire surroundings of a human being during such a more or less intense solar eclipse appear as follows. Everything looks quite different there. I would like to set aside the sight that presents itself during a solar eclipse, all the things that human art and human technology have produced, for it requires a certain strength of character and a deep awareness of the necessity that all this had to come into being in order to endure the demonic spectacle presented by those beings who, during a solar eclipse, rise above the outer, unartful technology. But I do not wish to dwell further on this description, but only to point out that at such a time, that which can otherwise be attained only through very difficult meditations appears in a luminous light: one then sees all plant and animal life differently; every bird, every butterfly looks different. One notices a dimming of the sense of life. It is something that, in the deepest sense, can evoke the conviction of how intimately connected in the cosmos is a certain spiritual life—which belongs to the sun and which, in what one sees in the sun, has, as it were, its physical body—with life on Earth. And one gets the feeling that when the physical radiance of the sun is forcibly darkened for physical life by the moon stepping in front of it, this is something quite different from when the sun simply does not shine at night. For the observing soul’s gaze, the sight of the earth surrounding us during a solar eclipse is quite different from that during a mere night. During a solar eclipse, one senses something like a rising of the group souls of the plants and the group souls of the animals, and in contrast, a fading of all physical corporeality in plants and animals. Something occurs akin to a brightening of all that is spiritual, of that which constitutes group soulhood.

[ 6 ] All of this becomes strikingly apparent when the clairvoyant gaze looks back upon that moment in Earth’s evolution which we call the Mystery of Golgotha. And then something emerges that one might call: one learns to read what this strange natural sign, this sudden eclipse of the sun—which the clairvoyant gaze, turned backward, beholds in the cosmos—actually signifies. I really cannot help it if I am compelled to read a purely natural event—such as has naturally occurred before and since—precisely at this point in Earth’s evolution in occult script—in contradiction to all present-day materialistic consciousness—in the way it immediately makes an impression. Just as when one opens a book and reads the text, so does one feel when faced with this event, as if what one is to read comes toward one from the very sign itself. Thus, from this sign of the cosmos, the necessity comes toward one that one should read something which humanity is meant to come to know. It appears to one like a word written in the cosmos, like a phonetic sign in the cosmos.

[ 7 ] And what does one read when one opens one’s soul to him? Yesterday I pointed out how, by the time of the Greeks, humanity had developed to such an extent that, in Plato and Aristotle, it had attained a particularly high level of intellectual development of the human soul. In many respects, the knowledge attained by Plato or Aristotle could not be surpassed in later times, for in a certain sense it had reached a pinnacle for the intellectual development of humanity. One can perceive much if one truly recognizes this. And when the clairvoyantly observing soul, observing the time of Palestine, looks at how this intellectual knowledge—to which humanity had developed—had become immensely popular on the Greek and Italian peninsulas through itinerant preachers precisely at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, when one takes all this in, how this knowledge had been disseminated in a way that is unimaginable today, then this clairvoyantly observing soul gains the possibility of an impression that resembles reading that aforementioned sign set into the cosmos. One then says to oneself, having drawn upon this clairvoyant consciousness: All that knowledge which humanity has gathered there, to which it rose in pre-Christian times—for this, the moon is a sign, passing through the universe from the Earth’s perspective, and the Moon specifically because, for all higher human knowledge, this knowledge has not behaved as if it were revealing or solving a riddle, but rather as if it were obscuring higher knowledge, just as the Moon eclipses the Sun during a solar eclipse. This is what one reads when one reads the occult symbol of the Sun being eclipsed by the Moon.

[ 8 ] One then realizes: At that time, all knowledge did not serve to enlighten, but rather to obscure the mystery of the world; and as a clairvoyant, one senses the eclipse of the higher, truly spiritual regions of the world by the knowledge of ancient times, which stood in the way of true insight just as the moon stands in the way of the sun during a solar eclipse. And the external natural phenomenon becomes an expression of the fact that humanity has reached a stage in which the knowledge created by humanity itself has placed itself before higher insight, just as the moon stands before the sun during a solar eclipse. One senses humanity’s spiritual darkening within Earth’s evolution inscribed in a tremendous sign of occult writing in the cosmos in that eclipse of the sun at the moment of the Mystery of Golgotha. I have said that contemporary consciousness may perceive it as an insult when one speaks of such things, because it no longer has any understanding of the working of spiritual forces in the universe that are connected with what works as forces within the human soul. I do not wish to speak in the ordinary sense of miracles, of a breaking of the laws of nature, but I cannot help but tell you how one must interpret that solar eclipse—how one cannot help but stand before this solar eclipse with one’s soul, as it were, reading what is expressed through this natural event: With the knowledge of the Moon, an eclipse has occurred in relation to the higher message of the Sun.

[ 9 ] And then—after reading this occult text—the image of the raised cross on Golgotha, with the body of Jesus hanging on it between the two thieves, does indeed appear before the clairvoyant consciousness. And it arises—and I may well add in parentheses that the more one resists this image, the more intensely it arises—the image of the taking down from the cross and the burial. Now a second powerful sign emerges, through which something is once again inscribed into the cosmos—something one must read in order to understand it—as a symbol of what has actually taken place in the evolution of humanity: One follows the image of Jesus being taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb, and when one directs the soul’s gaze upon it, one is shaken in the soul by an earthquake that passed through that region.

[ 10 ] Perhaps one day the connection between that solar eclipse and this earthquake will be better understood from a scientific perspective, for certain theories—which are already circulating around the world, albeit in a disjointed manner—suggest a link between solar eclipses and earthquakes, and even violent storms in mines. That earthquake was a consequence of the solar eclipse (see note). That earthquake shook the tomb where the body of Jesus had been laid—and the stone that had been placed over it was torn away, and a fissure was torn open in the earth, and the body was taken up by the fissure. Through further shaking, the fissure closed again over the body. And when the people came in the morning, the tomb was empty, for the earth had received the body of Jesus; only the stone lay there, cast aside.

[ 11 ] Let us follow the sequence of images once more! Jesus dies on the cross at Golgotha. Darkness falls over the earth. The body of Jesus is laid in the open tomb. An earthquake shakes the ground, and the body of Jesus is taken up from the earth. The fissure created by the earthquake closes, and the stone is hurled aside. All of these are actual events; I have no choice but to describe them this way. Let those who approach such matters from a scientific perspective judge as they will, and put forward all manner of arguments against it: what the clairvoyant gaze sees is exactly as I have described it. And if anyone were to say that such a thing could not happen—that a symbol is set forth from the cosmos, as in a mighty sign language, to indicate that something new has entered human evolution—if anyone were to say that the divine powers do not inscribe what happens into the earth with such a sign language as a solar eclipse and an earthquake, I could only reply: With all due respect to your belief that this cannot be so! But it has happened nonetheless; it has taken place! — I can imagine that someone like Ernest Renan, who wrote the peculiar *Life of Jesus*, might come and say: One does not believe in such things, for one believes only in that which can be reproduced at any time through experimentation. — But the idea is untenable, for would not a Renan, for example, believe in the Ice Age, even though it is impossible to recreate the Ice Age through experimentation? It is certainly impossible to bring the Ice Age back upon the earth, and yet all natural scientists believe in it. So it is impossible for this cosmic sign, which occurred once during the event at Golgotha, to ever appear before humanity again. Yet it did happen.

[ 12 ] We can only gain access to this event if we take the path I have indicated through clairvoyance, if we first immerse ourselves, for example, in the soul of Peter or one of the other apostles who, at Pentecost, felt themselves inspired by the all-pervading cosmic love. Only by looking into the souls of those people and seeing there what those souls experienced can we, through this roundabout way, find the opportunity to look upon the cross raised on Golgotha, upon the eclipse of the sun at that time, and upon the earthquake that followed. That, in the outer sense, this eclipse and this earthquake were quite ordinary natural phenomena is by no means denied; but that for the one who follows these events clairvoyantly, they appear as I have described them—as mighty signs of the occult script—this must be stated decisively by the one who has created the conditions for this within his soul. For in fact, what I have now described was, for Peter’s consciousness, something that crystallized in the realm of deep sleep. In the realm of Peter’s consciousness, crisscrossed by various images, the following stood out, for example: the cross raised on Golgotha, the eclipse, and the earthquake. For Peter, these were the first fruits of the fertilization with the all-ruling cosmic love during the Pentecost event. And now he knew something that he had not actually known before with his normal consciousness: that the event of Golgotha had taken place, and that the body hanging on the cross was the same body with which he had often walked through life. Now he knew that Jesus had died on the cross and that this dying was actually a birth—the birth of that Spirit which, as all-pervading love, had now poured itself out into the souls of the Apostles gathered at the Feast of Pentecost. And like a ray of the eternal, aeternal love, he felt the Spirit awaken in his soul as the very same Spirit that had been born when Jesus passed away on the cross. And the immense truth sank into Peter’s soul: It is only an illusion that a death took place on the cross; in truth, this death, which had been preceded by infinite suffering, was the birth of that which had now penetrated his soul like a ray, for the whole earth. For the earth, with the death of Jesus, was born that which had previously existed everywhere outside the earth: the all-pervading love, the cosmic love.

[ 13 ] Such a statement may seem abstract and easy to utter, but one must truly put oneself in the shoes of Peter’s soul for a moment, to understand how he felt—how he felt for the very first time at that moment: Something was born on Earth that had previously existed only in the cosmos, at the very moment when Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross at Golgotha. The death of Jesus of Nazareth was the birth of all-pervading cosmic love within the Earth’s sphere.

[ 14 ] This is, in a sense, the first insight we can glean from what we call the Fifth Gospel. What is referred to in the New Testament as the descent, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, is precisely what I have just described. Given their entire state of mind at the time, the apostles were not capable of experiencing the event of the death of Jesus of Nazareth in any way other than in an abnormal state of consciousness.

[ 15 ] Peter, as well as John and James, had to recall yet another moment in his life—that moment which is also described in the other Gospels, but whose full significance can only be understood through the Fifth Gospel. The One with whom they had walked on earth had led them out to the Mount of Olives, to the Garden of Gethsemane, and had said: “Watch and pray!”—But they had fallen asleep, and now they knew: At that time, that state had already come upon them, a state that was spreading more and more over their souls. Normal consciousness fell asleep; they sank into a slumber that lasted throughout the events at Golgotha, and from which radiated that which I have attempted to describe in stammering words. And Peter, John, and James had to reflect on how they had fallen into this state, and how now, as they looked back, the great events that had unfolded around the earthly body of the One with whom they had walked were dawning upon them. And gradually, just as buried dreams surface in human consciousness, in the human soul, so did the days gone by surface in the consciousness and souls of the Apostles. During those days, they had not experienced all of this with normal consciousness. Now it emerged into their normal consciousness, and what emerged was the entire period they had lived through from the event at Golgotha to the event of Pentecost, which had remained submerged in the depths of their souls. They felt that this time seemed to them like a time of deepest sleep. Especially the ten days from the so-called Ascension to the event of Pentecost seemed to them like a time of deepest sleep. Looking back, however, the time between the Mystery of Golgotha and the so-called Ascension of Christ Jesus came up to them day by day. They had experienced that, but it was only now coming up, and it came up in a very strange way.

[ 16 ] Please forgive me for inserting a personal remark here. I must confess that I myself was extremely astonished when I realized how what the Apostles had experienced in the period between the Mystery of Golgotha and the so-called Ascension arose within their souls. It is quite remarkable how this welled up, how it surfaced in the souls of the Apostles. — Image after image arose in the souls of the Apostles, and these images told them: Yes, you were indeed together with the One who died or was born on the cross; you did indeed encounter Him. Just as one remembers dreams upon waking in the morning and knows, ‘You were together with this or that person in this dream,’ so the memories arose like dreams in the souls of the Apostles. But it was quite peculiar how the individual events came to consciousness. They always had to ask themselves: Yes, who is this with whom we were together? — And time and again they failed to recognize him. They sensed that this was a spiritual being; they knew they had certainly walked with him in that sleep-like state, but they did not recognize him in the form in which he had now appeared to them, after being imbued with all-pervading love. They saw themselves walking with the one we call Christ, after the Mystery of Golgotha. And they also saw how he had indeed taught them about the Kingdom of the Spirit back then, how he had instructed them. And they came to understand how they had walked for forty days with this being who was born on the cross, how this being —the all-powerful love born from the cosmos into the earth—was their teacher, but how, with their normal consciousness, they had not been mature enough to understand what this being had to say, how they had had to take it in with the subconscious powers of their soul, how they had walked beside Christ like sleepwalkers and had not been able to grasp with their ordinary intellect what this being had to give them. And they listened to him during those forty days, with a consciousness they did not know, one that only now began to dawn upon them after they had gone through the Pentecost event. Like sleepwalkers, they had listened. He had appeared to them as a spiritual teacher and had instructed them in mysteries they could only understand by being transported into an entirely different state of consciousness. And so they saw only now: They had walked with Christ, with the risen Christ. But now they finally realized what had happened to them. And how did they recognize that this was truly the One with whom they had walked in the flesh before the Mystery of Golgotha? It happened in the following way.

[ 17 ] Let us suppose that such a vision now appeared before the soul of one of the apostles after the Feast of Pentecost. He saw how he had walked with the Risen One, how the Risen One had instructed him. But he did not recognize him. He saw a heavenly, spiritual being, but he did not recognize it. Then another image intermingled with it. Such an image mingled with the purely spiritual image that represented an experience the Apostles had truly undergone with Christ Jesus before the Mystery of Golgotha. There was a scene where they felt as though they were being instructed by the mystery of the Spirit, by Christ Jesus. But they did not recognize him. They stood facing this spiritual being who was instructing them, and so that they might recognize him, this image—while remaining intact—transformed into the image of the Last Supper that they had witnessed with Christ Jesus. Imagine truly that such an apostle had before him the supersensory experience with the Risen One and, as if acting in the background, the image of the Last Supper. Only then did they recognize that it was the same One with whom they had once walked in the flesh, as the One who was now instructing them in the entirely different form He had assumed after the Mystery of Golgotha. It was a complete merging of memories from the state of consciousness—which was, as it were, a state of sleep—with the images of memory that had preceded it. They experienced this as two images that coincided: one from the experiences following the Mystery of Golgotha, and one from before it, as if shining in from the time before their consciousness had become so clouded that they no longer witnessed what was taking place there. Thus they recognized that these two beings belong together: the Risen One and the One with whom they had once, relatively recently, walked about in the flesh. And they said to themselves now: So before we were awakened through the fertilization with the all-pervading cosmic love, we were as if taken away from our ordinary state of consciousness. And Christ, the Risen One, was with us. He took us, as it were, unknowingly into his kingdom, walked with us, and revealed to us the mysteries of his kingdom, which now, after the Pentecost mystery, emerge into normal consciousness as if experienced in a dream.

[ 18 ] This is what one experiences as something that evokes wonder: this constant convergence of an image of an experience the Apostles had with Christ “after the Mystery of Golgotha” with an image from before the Mystery of Golgotha—an image they had truly experienced in their physical bodies with Christ Jesus.

[ 19 ] We have begun by sharing what can be read in the so-called Fifth Gospel, and at the end of this first message I had to deliver today, I would like to say a few personal words to you that simply must be spoken alongside this fact. I feel, in a sense, occultly compelled to speak of these things now. But what I would like to say is this: I am well aware that we are currently living in a time when much is being prepared for humanity’s immediate future on Earth, and that within our—now Anthroposophical—Society we must, as it were, see ourselves as those who are beginning to sense that something must be prepared in the souls of human beings for the future. I know that times will come when we will be able to speak about these things in a way quite different from what our present age allows us. For we are all, after all, children of our time. But a near future will come in which one will be able to speak more accurately, more precisely, in which perhaps much of what can only be dimly perceived today will be able to be perceived much, much more clearly in the spiritual chronicle of becoming. Such times will come, even if it still seems so improbable to humanity today. Nevertheless, it is precisely for this reason that there is a certain obligation to speak about these things today, as a preparatory step. And even though it took some effort on my part to speak specifically on this topic, the obligation toward what must be prepared in our time ultimately prevailed. This led me to speak on this topic for the first time, right here with you.

[ 20 ] When I speak of “overcoming,” please take this word literally, just as it is spoken. I expressly ask that what I have to say on this occasion be understood merely as a kind of suggestion, as something that will certainly be expressed much better and more precisely in the future. And you will understand the word “overcoming” better if you allow me not to suppress a personal remark: It is quite clear to me that for the spiritual research to which I have devoted myself, it is initially extremely difficult and laborious to extract certain things from the spiritual writings of the world—precisely things of this kind! And I would not be at all surprised if the word “hint,” which I used, had an even much deeper and broader meaning than it perhaps needs to be understood now. I certainly do not mean to say that I am already able today to express precisely everything that is presented in the spiritual record. For I, in particular, feel many difficulties and struggles when it comes to extracting images relating to the mysteries of Christianity from the Akashic Records. I find it difficult to bring these images to the necessary level of conciseness, to be able to hold them fast, and I regard it, so to speak, as my karma that the duty has been imposed upon me to say what I am now expressing. For I would undoubtedly have less difficulty if I had been in the position of many of our contemporaries, having received a truly Christian upbringing in my early youth. I did not have that; I grew up in a completely free-thinking environment, and my studies also led me toward free-thinking. My own educational path was purely scientific. And that makes it somewhat difficult for me to find these things now, the things I am obliged to speak about.

[ 21 ] Perhaps I am permitted to make this personal remark for two reasons: first, because a foolish, ridiculous fairy tale about my connections to certain Catholic movements has been spread throughout the world due to a most peculiar lack of scruples. Not a single word of all this is true. And one can easily gauge what has become of what is often called Theosophy today simply by the fact that such unscrupulous fabrications and rumors are being spread into the world on the basis of Theosophy. But since we are compelled not to gloss over this in a lenient, clichéd manner, but rather to set the truth before it, this personal remark may be made. — On the other hand, precisely because I was distant from Christianity in my youth, I feel all the more unbiased toward it, and since I was led to Christianity and the Christ-being only through the Spirit, I believe I have a certain right, particularly in this area, to be free of prejudice and bias when making statements about these matters. Perhaps, especially at this moment in world history, one will be able to give more weight to the word of a person who comes from a scientific background and who was distant from Christianity in his youth than to that of someone who has been connected with Christianity since his earliest youth. And I truly do not believe that Christianity has anything to lose if its deeper elements are presented by a consciousness that has found its way to Christianity from the Spirit itself. But if you take these words seriously, you will sense, as I have indicated, what lives within me as I now speak of the mysteries I wish to describe as the mysteries of the so-called Fifth Gospel.