The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday we were able to take a look at the life of Jesus of Nazareth during the period that spanned roughly from his twelfth year until the end of his twenties. From what I was able to share, you surely sensed that something profoundly significant took place during this time for the soul of Jesus of Nazareth—and something profoundly significant for the entire evolution of humanity as well. For you surely know, from the fundamental understanding you have gained through your studies in spiritual science, that everything in human evolution is interconnected, and that such a significant event involving a human being—in whose inner life so much, so infinitely much of the concerns of all humanity plays a part—is indeed also of significance for the entire evolution of humanity. We come to know in the most varied ways what the event of Golgotha has become for the evolution of humanity. In this lecture series, the aim is to learn to recognize this through the contemplation of the life of Christ Jesus himself. And so we turn the gaze that we directed yesterday toward the period I described—the time between the twelfth year and the baptism by John—back once more today to the soul of Jesus of Nazareth and ask ourselves: What might have been lived within this soul after the significant events had unfolded, extending into the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth years, of which I spoke yesterday.

[ 2 ] One might perhaps get a sense of what lived within that soul if I may recount a scene that took place in the life of Jesus of Nazareth toward the end of his twenties. This scene I am about to describe concerns a conversation that Jesus of Nazareth had with his mother—that is, with the woman who, through the union of the two families, had become his mother over the course of many years. For all those years, he had gotten along with this mother very intimately and exceptionally well, much better than he could get along with the other members of the family who lived in the house in Nazareth; that is to say, he would have gotten along well with them, but they could not get along well with him. Indeed, many of the impressions that had gradually formed in his soul had already been discussed between him and his mother in the past. But during the period in question, a rather significant conversation took place, which we will examine today and which allows us to look deeply into his soul.

[ 3 ] Jesus of Nazareth had, however, been gradually transformed by the experiences described yesterday, so that infinite wisdom was reflected in his countenance. But he had also, as is always the case—albeit to a lesser degree—when wisdom increases in a human soul, come to feel a certain inner sadness. At first, wisdom had borne the fruit that the view he could cast upon his human surroundings actually made him quite sad. Added to this was the fact that, over the past twenty years, he had increasingly found himself thinking of something very specific during quiet moments: time and again he had to think of how, in his twelfth year, such a turning point, such a revolution had taken place in his soul, as a result of the Zarathustra-I stepping into his soul. He had to think of how, in the early years following his twelfth year, he had, so to speak, felt within himself only the infinite richness of this Zarathustra soul. After all, at the end of his twenties he did not yet know that he was the reincarnated Zarathustra; but he knew that a great, powerful upheaval had taken place in his soul in his twelfth year. And now he often had the feeling: Oh, how different things were for me before this upheaval in my twelfth year! - When he thought back to that time now, he felt how infinitely warm his heart had been back then. As a boy, he had been completely detached from the world. He had, indeed, had the liveliest feeling for everything that speaks to humanity from nature, for all the splendor and grandeur of nature, but he had little aptitude for what human wisdom and human knowledge had acquired. He had little interest in what could be learned in school! It would be a complete mistake to believe that this boy Jesus, before Zarathustra had entered his soul, had possessed any special talent in the conventional sense up until his twelfth year, or that he had been particularly clever. On the contrary, he possessed an extraordinarily gentle, meek nature, an infinite capacity for love, a deep inner emotional life, and a comprehensive understanding of all that is human, but no interest in all the knowledge that people have accumulated over the centuries. And then it was as if, after that moment in the Temple in Jerusalem in his twelfth year, all of this had burst out of his soul and all wisdom had flowed in to take its place! And now he often had to think and feel how, in a completely different way, he had been connected to all the deeper spirit of the world before his twelfth year, as if his soul had been open to the depths of the infinite expanses! And how he had lived since his twelfth year, how he found his soul suited for a kind of absorption of Hebrew scholarship, which, however, arose quite naturally from within him, how he had endured the shock that the Bath-Kol could no longer have an inspiring effect in the old way; how he then, on his travels, came to know the pagan cults, how all the knowledge and religiosity of paganism, in its various nuances, had permeated his soul. He thought of how he had lived between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four amidst all that humanity had outwardly achieved, and how he had then joined the community of the Essenes around the age of twenty-four and there had come to know a secret teaching and people who devoted themselves to such a secret teaching. He often had to think of this. But he also knew that, fundamentally speaking, what had blossomed in his soul was only what people had stored within themselves as knowledge since ancient times; he lived in what human treasures of wisdom, human treasures of culture, and human treasures of moral achievements offered. He felt that he had lived in the human realm on earth since the age of twelve. And now he often found himself thinking back to how he had been before that twelfth year, when he felt, as it were, connected to the divine foundations of existence, when everything within him was elemental and primal, when everything sprang from a bubbling life, from a warm, loving heart, and bound him intimately to other human souls, whereas now he had become lonely, alone, and silent.

[ 4 ] It was all these feelings that led to a very specific conversation taking place between him and the woman who had become his mother. His mother loved him dearly, and she had often spoken with him about all the beauty and greatness that had manifested itself in him since he was twelve. An ever more intimate, noble, and beautiful relationship had developed with this stepmother. But he had so far kept his inner conflict hidden from this mother as well, so that she had seen only the beautiful and the great. She had seen only how he was becoming wiser and wiser, how he was penetrating ever more deeply into the entire evolution of humanity. Therefore, much of what took place in this conversation—which was like a kind of general confession—was new to her, but she received it with a deep, warm heart. It was as if she immediately understood his sadness, his emotional state, and his longing to return to what he had within him before the age of twelve. That is why she sought to uplift and comfort him by beginning to speak of all that had since come to light within him so beautifully and magnificently. She reminded him of all that had become known to her through him regarding the renewal of the great teachings, words of wisdom, and treasures of the law of Judaism. She spoke with him of all that had come to light through him. But his heart grew ever heavier as he heard his mother speak in this way, so highly valuing what he inwardly actually felt he had overcome. And finally he replied: Yes, all that may be true. But whether through me or through someone else, if all the ancient, magnificent treasures of Jewish wisdom could be renewed today, what significance would all that have for humanity? Basically, everything that comes to light in this way is meaningless. Yes, if there were a humanity around us today that had ears to listen to the old prophets, then it would be useful for this humanity if the treasures of wisdom from the old prophetic tradition could be revived. But even if someone could speak as the ancient prophets spoke, even if Elijah were to come today—as Jesus of Nazareth said—and wanted to proclaim to our humanity what he has experienced as the best in the vastness of heaven: there are simply no people there who have ears to hear the wisdom of Elijah, of the older prophets, even of Moses, yes, all the way back to Abraham. Everything these prophets proclaimed would be impossible to proclaim today. Their words would fade away unheard in the wind! And so, everything I hold in my soul is worthless.

[ 5 ] Thus spoke Jesus of Nazareth, pointing out how, only recently, the words of a truly great teacher had essentially faded away without leaving a lasting impact. For, as he said, even if this was not a teacher who could measure up to the ancient prophets, he was nonetheless a great and significant teacher, good old Hillel. Jesus knew exactly what this old Hillel—who had managed to gain great esteem as a spiritual teacher even during the difficult times of Herod—had meant to many within Judaism. He was a man who had possessed great treasures of wisdom in his soul. And Jesus knew how little the heartfelt words spoken by the old Hillel had found their way into people’s hearts and souls. Yet it had been said of the old Hillel: the Torah, the sum of Judaism’s oldest and most significant laws, had vanished, and Hillel had restored it. —- To those of his contemporaries who understood him, Hillel appeared as a renewer of the original Jewish wisdom. He was a teacher who also walked among people like a true teacher of wisdom. Gentleness was his fundamental character; he was a kind of Messiah. All this is recounted even in the Talmud, and it can be verified through external scholarship. People were full of praise for Hillel and spoke highly of him. I can only single out a few examples to illustrate the way Jesus of Nazareth spoke of Hillel to his mother, to convey his state of mind.

[ 6 ] Hillel is described as a gentle, mild-mannered man who accomplished extraordinary things through kindness and love. A story has been preserved that is particularly significant in demonstrating how Hillel was a man of patience and gentleness who was accommodating to everyone. Two men once made a bet on whether they could provoke Hillel into anger, for it was well known that Hillel was incapable of getting angry. So the two men made a bet, and one of them said: “I will do everything in my power to make Hillel angry.” —He wanted to win his bet. Just when Hillel was busiest, when he had the most to do with preparing for the Sabbath—a time when such a man should be disturbed the least— the man who had made the bet knocked on Hillel’s door and did not speak in a polite tone or with any form of address—and Hillel was the head of the supreme religious authority, accustomed to being addressed politely—but the man simply shouted: “Hillel, come out, come out quickly!”—Hillel threw on his cloak and came out. The man said in a sharp tone, again without the slightest courtesy: “Hillel, I have something to ask you.” — And Hillel replied kindly: “My dear fellow, what is it you wish to ask?” — “I wish to ask you why the Babylonians have such thin heads?” — Then Hillel said in the gentlest tone: Well, my dear friend, the Babylonians have such thin heads because they have such clumsy midwives. — Then the man walked away, thinking that this time Hillel had remained gentle. Hillel went back to his work. After a few minutes, the man returned and again called out harshly to Hillel in the middle of his work: “Hillel, come out, I have something important to ask you!” — Hillel threw his cloak on again, came out, and said: “Well, my friend, what do you want to ask now?” — “I want to ask you why the Arabs have such small eyes?” — Gently, Hillel said: “Because the desert is so vast; that makes the eyes small. The eyes grow small when gazing at the vast desert; that is why the Arabs have such small eyes.” — Hillel remained gentle once more. The man was quite anxious about his wager, so he came back and called out a third time in a harsh tone: “Hillel, come out, I have something important to ask you!” — Hillel put on his cloak, came out, and asked with the same gentleness as always: “Well, my dear friend, what do you have to ask me now?” — “I have to ask you, why do the Egyptians have such flat feet?” — “Because the regions there are so swampy; that is why the Egyptians have such flat feet.” — And calmly and serenely, Hillel went back to his work. After a few minutes, the man returned and told Hillel that he didn’t want to ask him anything after all; he had made a bet that he could make Hillel angry, but he didn’t know how to do it. Then Hillel said gently: “My dear friend, it is better that you lose your bet than that Hillel become angry!”

[ 7 ] This legend is told to demonstrate how gentle and kind Hillel himself was even toward those who tormented him. Such a man, Jesus of Nazareth said to his mother, is in many ways something like an ancient prophet. And do we not know many of Hillel’s sayings that sound like a renewal of the ancient prophetic tradition? He quoted some of Hillel’s beautiful sayings and then said: Behold, dear mother, it is said of Hillel that he is like a resurrected ancient prophet. I have a special interest in him, for something strange is dawning within me, as if there were a special connection between Hillel and me; something is dawning on me, as if what I know and what lives within me as a great revelation of the spiritual did not come solely from Judaism. — And it was the same with Hillel, for he was, by outward birth, a Babylonian and had only later entered Judaism. But he, too, was of the house of David, related from time immemorial to the house of David, from which Jesus of Nazareth and his own people also traced their lineage. And Jesus said: “Even if I, like Hillel, as a son of the house of David, were to proclaim the high revelations that have been poured into my soul like an illumination—and which are the very same high revelations that were given to the Jewish people in ancient times—today there are no ears to hear them!”

[ 8 ] Deep within his soul lay a burden of pain and sorrow over the fact that once upon a time the greatest truths in the world had been given to the Hebrew people, that once upon a time the bodies of this people had been such that they could understand these revelations, but that now times had changed, that the bodies of the Hebrew people had also changed, so that they could no longer understand the ancient revelations of the forefathers.

[ 9 ] It was an immensely profound and most painful experience for Jesus to have to admit to himself: Once upon a time, the teachings of the prophets were understood; the Hebrew people understood the language of God; but today there is no one who understands it; it would be like preaching to deaf ears. Such words are no longer appropriate today; there are no longer ears to understand them! Everything one might say in this way is worthless and useless. - And as a summary of what he had to say on this subject, Jesus of Nazareth spoke to his mother: The revelation of ancient Judaism is no longer possible on this earth, for the ancient Jews are no longer here to receive it. This must be regarded as something worthless on our earth.

[ 10 ] And strangely enough, his mother listened calmly as he spoke of the worthlessness of what was most sacred to her. But she loved him dearly and felt only her boundless love. Therefore, she came to deeply understand, on an emotional level, what he had to say to her. And then he continued the conversation and came to recount how he had wandered into the pagan places of worship and what he had experienced there. It dawned on his mind how he had fallen down before the pagan altar, how he had heard the altered Bath-Kol. And then something like a memory of the ancient Zarathustra teaching dawned on him. He did not yet know for certain that he carried the Zarathustra soul within him, but the ancient Zarathustra teaching, the Zarathustra wisdom, the ancient Zarathustra impulse rose within him during the conversation. In communion with his mother, he experienced this great Zarathustra impulse. All the beauty and grandeur of the ancient Sun teaching welled up in his soul. And he remembered: When I lay at the pagan altar, I heard something like a revelation! — And now the words of the transformed Bath-Kol, which I spoke yesterday, came to his mind, and he spoke them to his mother:

Amen
Evil reigns
Witnesses to a dissolving selfhood
Guilt of selfhood blamed on others
Experienced in our daily bread
In which the will of Heaven does not reign
Since man parted from Your Kingdom
And forgot Your name
You Fathers in Heaven.

[ 11 ] And all the grandeur of the cult of Mithras, too, came alive within his soul and presented itself to him as if through an inner genius. He spoke at length with his mother about the grandeur and glory of ancient paganism. He spoke at length of what lived in the ancient mysteries of the peoples, of how the individual mystery cults of the Near East and Southern Europe had converged in this cult of Mithras. But at the same time, he carried within his soul the terrible realization of how this cult had gradually changed and fallen under demonic powers, which he himself had experienced around the age of twenty-four. Everything he had experienced back then came to mind. And then the ancient teachings of Zarathustra also appeared to him as something to which the people of today are no longer receptive. And under this impression, he spoke to his mother the second significant word: Even if all the old mysteries and cults were renewed, and everything that was once great in the mysteries of paganism were to flow into them, the people to hear this are no longer here! All of this is useless. And if I were to go out and proclaim to people what I have heard as the transformed voice of the ancient Bath-Kol, if I were to reveal the mystery of why people can no longer live in communion with the mysteries in their physical lives, or if I were to proclaim the ancient solar wisdom of Zarathustra, today there are no people who would understand this. Today, all of this would turn into a demonic being within people, for it would resonate so deeply within human souls that the ears are not there to understand such things! People have ceased to be able to hear what was once proclaimed and heard.

[ 12 ] For Jesus of Nazareth now knew that what he had heard back then as the transformed voice of the Bath-Kol, which had called out to him the words: “Amen, evil reigns”—was an ancient sacred teaching, a universal prayer found throughout the mysteries, which had been prayed in the mystery sites, but which had been forgotten today. He now knew that what had been given to him was a reference to ancient mystery wisdom that had come upon him when he was transported at the pagan altar. But he also saw, and expressed this in that conversation, that there is no way to bring this back into understanding today.

[ 13 ] And then he continued this conversation with the mother, speaking of what he had absorbed while among the Essenes. He spoke of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the Essene teachings, recalling the great kindness and gentleness of the Essenes. Then he spoke the third significant word that had dawned on him during his visionary conversation with the Buddha: Surely not all people can become Essenes! How right Hillel was when he spoke these words: Do not separate yourself from the whole, but create and work within the whole; extend your love to your fellow human beings, for if you are alone, what are you then? But that is exactly what the Essenes do; they separate themselves, they withdraw with their holy way of life and thereby bring misfortune upon other people. For people must be unhappy because they separate themselves from them. — And then he spoke the significant words to the Mother, recounting to her the experience I discussed yesterday: Once, when I was leaving after an intimate, most important conversation with the Essenes, I saw at the main gate how Lucifer and Ahriman were running away. Since that time, dear Mother, I have known that the Essenes, through their way of life and their secret teachings, protect themselves from them, so that Lucifer and Ahriman must flee from their gates. But in doing so, they send Lucifer and Ahriman away from themselves toward other people. The Essenes become happy in their souls at the expense of other people; they become happy because they save themselves from Lucifer and Ahriman! — He now knew, through his life among the Essenes: Yes, there is still one possibility to ascend to where one unites with the Divine-Spiritual, but only individuals can achieve it at the expense of the great multitude. He now knew: Neither in the Jewish way, nor in the Gentile way, nor in the Essene way could the connection with the Divine-Spiritual world be brought to humanity at large.

[ 14 ] These words struck a terrible blow to the soul of the loving mother. Throughout this entire conversation, he was united with her, as one with her. The whole soul, the whole being of Jesus of Nazareth lay in these words. And here I would like to touch upon a mystery that took place before the baptism by John in this conversation with his mother: something passed from Jesus to this mother. Not only did all this break free from his soul in words, but because he had been so intimately united with her since his twelfth year, his whole being passed over to her with his words, and he now became as if he had lost himself, as if his self had departed from him. The mother, however, had attained a new self that had sunk into her: she had become a new personality. And if one investigates, if one tries to figure out what happened there, the following curious fact emerges.

[ 15 ] All of Jesus’s terrible pain, the terrible suffering that tore itself from his soul, poured into his mother’s soul, and she felt at one with him. But Jesus felt as if everything that had lived within him since his twelfth year had departed during this conversation. The more he spoke of it, the more his mother was filled with all the wisdom that lived within him. And all the experiences that had lived within him since his twelfth year now came to life in the soul of his loving mother! But from him they had as it were vanished; he had, so to speak, placed into the soul, into the heart of his mother, that which he himself had experienced since his twelfth year. Through this, his mother’s soul was transformed.

[ 16 ] How changed he, too, had become since that conversation—so changed that his brothers or half-brothers and the other relatives around him began to think he had lost his mind. What a pity, they said; he knew so much; he had always been very taciturn, but now he has completely lost his mind, now he has lost his reason! — He was regarded as a lost soul. Indeed, he wandered about the house for days on end as if in a dream. The Zarathustra-I was just in the process of leaving this body of Jesus of Nazareth and passing into the spiritual world. And a final resolution came to him: as if driven by an inner urge, as if by an inner necessity, after a few days he moved mechanically out of the house, toward John the Baptist, whom he already knew, in order to receive baptism from him.

[ 17 ] And then that event took place, which I have described more often than John’s baptism in the Jordan: the Christ-being descended into his body.

[ 18 ] This is how things unfolded. Jesus was now permeated by the Christ-being. Since that conversation with his mother, the “I” of Zarathustra had receded, and what had been there before—what he had been up to the age of twelve—was present once more, only now grown, become even greater. And into this body, which now carried within itself only the infinite depth of the soul, the feeling of openness to infinite expanses, the Christ descended. Jesus was now permeated by the Christ; but the mother, too, had attained a new self that had sunk into her; she had become a new personality.

[ 19 ] The following picture emerges for the spiritual researcher: At the very moment this baptism took place in the Jordan, the mother also felt something like the culmination of her transformation. She felt—she was then in her forty-fifth or forty-sixth year—she suddenly felt as if she were permeated by the soul of that mother who had been the mother of the boy Jesus, who had received the Zarathustra-I in his twelfth year, and who had died. Just as the Christ Spirit had descended upon Jesus of Nazareth, so had the spirit of the other mother, who was now dwelling in the spiritual world, descended upon the foster mother with whom Jesus had had that conversation. From then on, she felt like that young mother who had once given birth to the Luke-Jesus child.

[ 20 ] Let us truly imagine what an infinitely significant event this is! Let us try to feel this, but also to feel that a very special being was now living on Earth: the Christ Being in a human body, a being who had not yet lived in a human body, who until then had existed only in the spiritual realms, who had no previous earthly life, who knew the spiritual worlds, not the earthly world! Of the earthly world, this Being learned only what was, as it were, stored up in the three bodies—the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body—of Jesus of Nazareth. It descended into these three bodies, as they had become under the influence of the thirty years of life that I have described. Thus this Christ-being experienced quite impartially what it first experienced on Earth.

[ 21 ] This Christ-essence was initially led—as the Akashic Records of the Fifth Gospel also show us—into solitude. Jesus of Nazareth, in whose body the Christ-being resided, had indeed surrendered everything that had previously connected him to the rest of the world. The Christ-being had just arrived on Earth. At first, this Christ-being was drawn to that which, through the impressions of the body that had remained as if in memory, had become most deeply ingrained in the astral body. As it were, the Christ-being said to itself: Yes, this is the body that experienced the fleeing Ahriman and Lucifer, that sensed how the striving Essenes were driving Ahriman and Lucifer toward the other human beings. — Christ felt drawn to them, to Ahriman and Lucifer, for he said to himself: These are the spiritual beings with whom people on Earth must struggle. — Thus the Christ-being, dwelling for the first time in a human body, in an earthly body, was initially drawn to the struggle with Lucifer and Ahriman in the solitude of the desert.

[ 22 ] I believe that the scene of the temptation, as I am about to recount it, is entirely accurate. But it is very difficult to read such things in the Akashic Records. Therefore, I expressly note that one or two details might be slightly modified upon further occult investigation. But the essential elements are there, and it is these essential elements that I have to tell you. The temptation scene appears in various Gospels, of course. But these tell the story from different perspectives. I have emphasized this many times. I have endeavored to reconstruct this temptation scene as it truly was, and I would like to recount it impartially, just as it was.

[ 23 ] First, the Christ-being in the body of Jesus of Nazareth encountered Lucifer in solitude—Lucifer, as he reigns and works, approaching people with temptation when they overestimate themselves, when they lack self-knowledge and humility. Approaching false pride, arrogance, and the self-aggrandizement of human beings: that is what Lucifer always seeks to do. Now Lucifer approached Christ Jesus and said to him words similar to those found in the other Gospels: Look at me! The other realms into which humanity has been placed, those founded by other gods and spirits, are ancient. But I want to found a new kingdom; I have detached myself from the world order; I will give you all the beauty and glory found in the old kingdoms if you enter my kingdom. But you must separate yourself from the other gods and acknowledge me! — And Lucifer described all the beauty and glory of the Luciferic world, everything that would speak to the human soul if it had even a little pride within it. But the Christ-Being had just come from the spiritual worlds; it knew who Lucifer is and how the soul should behave toward the gods, not wanting to be seduced by Lucifer on Earth. The Christ-being knew nothing of the Luciferic temptation in the world from which it came; yet it knew how to serve the gods, and it was strong enough to reject Lucifer.

[ 24 ] Then Lucifer launched a second attack, but this time he enlisted Ahriman to support him, and both of them now spoke to the Christ. One sought to stir up his pride: Lucifer; the other sought to appeal to his fear: Ahriman. Thus it came to pass that one said to him: Through my spirituality, through what I can give you if you acknowledge me, you will not need what you now need, because you have entered a human body as Christ. This physical body subjugates you; you must acknowledge the law of gravity within it. It prevents you from transgressing the law of gravity, but I will lift you above the laws of gravity. If you acknowledge me, I will remove the consequences of the fall, and nothing will happen to you. Cast yourself down from the pinnacle! For it is written: I will command the angels to guard you, so that you do not strike your foot against a stone. — Ahriman, who sought to influence his fear, said: I will protect you from fear! Throw yourself down!

[ 25 ] And both of them pressed in on him. But since they both rushed at him and, as it were, balanced each other out in their onslaught, he was able to save himself from them. And he found the strength that a human being must find on earth in order to rise above Lucifer and Ahriman.

[ 26 ] Then Ahriman said: “Lucifer, I have no use for you; you only hinder me. You have not increased my powers, but diminished them. I will tempt him alone. You have prevented this soul from falling into our hands.” - Then Ahriman sent Lucifer away and launched his final attack when he was alone, and he said what is echoed in the Gospel of Matthew: “If you wish to boast of divine powers, then turn the mineral into bread,” or as it says in the Gospel: “Turn the stones into bread!” — Then the Christ Being said to Ahriman: “People do not live by bread alone, but by what comes as the spiritual from the spiritual worlds.” — The Christ Being knew this best, for it had just descended from the spiritual worlds. Then Ahriman replied: You may well be right. But the fact that you are right, and to what extent you are right, cannot actually prevent me from restraining you in a certain way. You know only what the spirit does that descends from the heights. But you have not yet been in the human world. Down there in the human world there are quite different people who truly need to turn stones into bread; they cannot possibly nourish themselves solely on the spirit.

[ 27 ] That was the moment when Ahriman said something to Christ that, while it was known on Earth, the God who had only just set foot on Earth could not yet know. He did not know that down on Earth it is necessary to turn minerals and metals into money so that people may have bread. Then Ahriman said that the poor people down there on Earth are forced to sustain themselves with money. That was the point where Ahriman still held power. And I will—said Ahriman—use this power!

[ 28 ] This is the true account of the story of the Temptation. So something remained unresolved during the Temptation. The questions had not been definitively resolved; Lucifer’s questions, perhaps, but not Ahriman’s. To resolve these, something else was still needed.

[ 29 ] When the Christ Jesus left solitude behind, he felt himself transported beyond all that he had experienced and learned from the age of twelve onward; he felt the Christ Spirit connected to what had lived within him before the age of twelve. In fact, he no longer felt connected to all that had become old and barren in the course of human development. Even the language spoken in his surroundings had become indifferent to him, and at first he remained silent as well. He wandered around Nazareth and even further out, farther and farther. He visited many of the places he had already touched as Jesus of Nazareth, and there something most peculiar became apparent. Please note well: I am telling the story of the Fifth Gospel, and it would be of no use if anyone were to immediately look for contradictions between this and the other four Gospels. I am telling it as it stands in the Fifth Gospel.

[ 30 ] In quiet contemplation, as if having nothing in common with his surroundings, Christ Jesus first wandered from inn to inn, working everywhere among the people and with the people. And what he had experienced with Ahriman’s saying about the bread had left a deep impression on him. Everywhere he found people who already knew him, with whom he had worked before. The people recognized him, and among these people he truly found the common folk—those to whom Ahriman must have access, because they need to turn stones and minerals into bread, or, which is the same thing, to turn money and metal into bread. He had no need to stop with those who observed Hillel’s sayings or other moral maxims. But he did stop with those whom the other Gospels call tax collectors and sinners, for these were the ones who depended on turning stones into bread. He went about especially among these people.

[ 31 ] But now something remarkable had happened: Many of these people already knew him from the time before he turned thirty, when he had been with them once, twice, or three times as Jesus of Nazareth. Back then, they had come to know his gentle, loving, and wise nature. For such great pain, such deep suffering, which he had endured since the age of twelve, was ultimately transformed into the magical power of love that radiated from every word, as if a mysterious power still reigned in his words, pouring out over those around him. Wherever he went, everywhere, in every home, in every inn, he was deeply loved. And this love remained behind when he had left the houses again and moved on.

[ 32 ] In these homes, there was much talk of that dear man, Jesus of Nazareth, who had walked through these homes, these places. And as if through the influence of cosmic laws, the following occurred. I am recounting here scenes that were repeated many times and that clairvoyant research can show us time and again. There he was in the families where Jesus of Nazareth had worked, who sat together after work and enjoyed talking, even after the sun had set—as if he were still present! There they spoke of the dear man who had been with them as Jesus of Nazareth. They told many stories of his love and gentleness, and of the beautiful, warm feelings that had stirred their souls while this person had lived under their roof. And then it happened—it was an aftereffect of that love that radiated forth—in many of these homes, after they had spoken of this guest for hours on end, the image of this Jesus of Nazareth entered the room as if in a shared vision for all family members. Yes, he visited them in spirit, or perhaps they created his spiritual image.

[ 33 ] Now you can imagine how such families felt when he appeared to them in their shared vision, and what it meant to them when he returned after John’s baptism in the Jordan and they recognized his appearance—only his eyes had become more radiant. They saw the transfigured face that had once looked at them so lovingly, this whole person whom they had seen sitting with them in spirit. What extraordinary things happened in such families, what happened among the sinners and tax collectors who, because of their karma, were surrounded and tormented by all the demonic beings of that time—those who were sick, burdened, and possessed—how these people must have felt this return, we can well imagine!

[ 34 ] Now the transformed nature of Jesus became evident; it was particularly evident in such people what had become of Jesus of Nazareth through the indwelling of Christ. Previously, they had only felt his love, goodness, and gentleness, so that they subsequently had a vision of him; but now something emanated from him like a magical power! Whereas they had previously felt only comforted by his presence, they now felt healed by him. And they went to their neighbors, brought them over when they were likewise oppressed and plagued by demonic forces, and brought them to Jesus Christ. And so it came to pass that Christ Jesus, having defeated Lucifer and retained only a thorn from Ahriman, was able to effect among the people who were under Ahriman’s rule that which is always described in the Bible as the casting out of demons and the healing of the sick. Many of those demons he had seen while lying as if dead on the pagan sacrificial altar now withdrew from the people when he stood before them as Christ Jesus. For just as Lucifer and Ahriman saw their adversary in him, so too did the demons see their adversary in him. And as he traveled through the land in this way, the behavior of the demons in human souls often and often reminded him of that time when he had lain there at the old sacrificial altar, where demons were in place of the gods, and where he could not perform the service. He had to recall the Bath-Kol, which had proclaimed to him the ancient mystery prayer of which I have spoken to you. And in particular, the middle line of this prayer came to his mind again and again: “Live in daily bread.” — Now he saw it: These people with whom he had stayed had to turn stones into bread. He saw: Among these people with whom he had lived, there are many who must live on bread alone. And the words from that ancient pagan prayer: “Live in daily bread,” sank deep into his soul. He felt the full embodiment of the human being in the physical world. He felt that, because of this necessity, human evolution had come so far that, through this physical embodiment, people could forget the names of the fathers in the heavens, the names of the spirits of the higher hierarchies. And he felt that there were now no longer any people who could hear the voices of the ancient prophets and the message of the wisdom of Zarathustra. Now he knew that it is life in daily bread that has separated people from the heavens, that drives people into selfishness and must lead them to Ahriman.

[ 35 ] As he traveled through the land with such thoughts, it turned out that those who had felt most deeply how Jesus of Nazareth had been transformed became his disciples and followed him. From various inns he took this or that person who now followed him, following because he had, to the highest degree, that feeling I just described. And so it came to pass that a group of such disciples soon gathered together. In these disciples, he had people around him who were now in a fundamental state of mind that was, in a sense, entirely new—people who, through him, had become different from those of whom he had once had to tell his mother that they could no longer hear the old ways. And then the earthly experience of God shone forth within him: I must tell people not how the gods blazed the trail down from the Spirit to the Earth, but how human beings can find their way up from the Earth to the Spirit.

[ 36 ] And now the voice of the Bath-Kol came back to his mind, and he knew that the most ancient formulas and prayers must be renewed; he knew that now man must seek the path to the spiritual worlds from below, that through this prayer he could seek the divine Spirit. So he took the last line of the old prayer:

“Our Father in Heaven”

[ 37 ] and reversed it, because it is now appropriate for the people of the new age and because he had to relate it not to the many spiritual beings of the hierarchies, but to the one spiritual being:

“Our Father in heaven.”

[ 38 ] And the second line he had heard as the penultimate line of the mystery:

“And forgot your name,”

[ 39 ] he rephrased it to reflect what it must now mean for the people of the new era:

“Hallowed be Thy name.”

[ 40 ] And just as people who must climb up from below must feel when they wish to draw near to the deity, so he altered the third-to-last line, which read:

“Since Man Has Departed from Your Kingdom” in: “Thy Kingdom Come!”

[ 41 ] And the following line:

“In which the will of Heaven does not prevail,”

[ 42 ] He reversed them so that people could now hear them on their own, for no one could hear the old word order anymore. He reversed them because a complete reversal of the path to the spiritual worlds was to take place; he reversed them into:

“Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

[ 43 ] And the mystery of the bread, of incarnation in the physical body—the mystery of all that had now become fully apparent to him through the sting of Ahriman—he transformed in such a way that human beings might sense how this physical world, too, comes from the spiritual world, even if they do not immediately recognize it. Thus he transformed this line about daily bread into a prayer:

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

[ 44 ] And the words:

He rephrased “the guilt of selfhood attributed to others” as: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

[ 45 ] And the line that was the second in the ancient Prayer of the Mysteries:

“Witnesses to the Dissolution of the Self,”

[ 46 ] he turned the situation around by saying:

“But deliver us,”

[ 47 ] and the first line:

“Evil reigns,”

[ 48 ] he changed it to:

“From evil. Amen.”

[ 49 ] And so, what Christianity came to know as the Lord’s Prayer—through the reversal of what Jesus had once heard as the transformed voice of the Bath-Kol during his fall at the pagan altar—became what Christ Jesus taught as the new mystery prayer, the new Lord’s Prayer. In a similar way—and there will certainly be much more to say on this—the Sermon on the Mount and other things that Christ Jesus taught his disciples also came into being.

[ 50 ] Christ Jesus had a peculiar effect on his disciples. As I tell you about this, my dear friends, I ask that you always keep in mind that I am simply recounting what is written in this Fifth Gospel. As he traveled through the countryside, his effect on his surroundings was quite peculiar. Although he was in fellowship with the apostles and the disciples, because he was the Christ-being, it was as if he were not merely in his physical body. When he went about the country with the disciples, this or that person would sometimes feel as if he were within them, within their own soul, even as he walked beside them. Many felt as if that essence belonging to Christ Jesus were within their own soul, and they would then begin to speak the words that Christ Jesus himself alone could actually speak. And so this group went about and met people; words were spoken to them, and the one who spoke was by no means always Christ Jesus himself, but many of the disciples also spoke; for he shared everything with the disciples, including his wisdom.

[ 51 ] I must confess that I was greatly astonished when I realized that, for example, the conversation with the Sadducee described in the Gospel of Mark was not spoken by Christ Jesus from within the body of Jesus, but by one of the disciples; yet, of course, it was Christ who spoke. And this phenomenon was also common: that when Christ Jesus left his followers—he would sometimes separate himself from them—he was still among them. Either he walked with them spiritually while he was far away, or he was with them only in his etheric body. His etheric body was among them; his etheric body also walked with them throughout the land, and one could often not tell whether he had, so to speak, his physical body with him, or whether it was merely the appearance of the etheric body.

[ 52 ] Such was his interaction with the disciples and with various people from the masses after Jesus of Nazareth had become Christ Jesus. He himself, however, experienced what I have already hinted at: While the Christ-Essence was relatively independent of the body of Jesus of Nazareth in the early days, it later had to become more and more like him. And the further life progressed, the more he was bound to the body of Jesus of Nazareth, and in the final year a profound sorrow came over him because of his bondage to the body of Jesus of Nazareth, which had by then become infirm. Yet it still happened that Christ, who was now traveling about with a large crowd, would again step out of his body. Here and there, someone would speak—here one, there another from the group of apostles—and one might believe that the one speaking was Christ Jesus, or that it was not Christ Jesus: Christ spoke through them all as long as they traveled about in intimate communion with him.

[ 53 ] One can overhear a conversation between the Pharisees and the Jewish scribes as they spoke to one another and said: “To serve as a warning to the people, we could certainly pick out just anyone from this crowd and put him to death; but it might just as well be a false one, for they all speak the same way.” That would not serve our purpose, for then the real Christ Jesus might still be there. But we must have the real one! — Only the disciples themselves, those who had already drawn near to him, could distinguish him. But they certainly did not tell the enemy which one was the real one.

[ 54 ] But Ahriman had become strong enough with regard to the question that remained—the one that Christ could not resolve in the spiritual worlds, but only on Earth. He had to learn through the most difficult deed what it means to turn stones into bread, or what is the same thing, to turn money into bread, for Ahriman made use of Judas of Karioth.

[ 55 ] Just as Christ worked—no spiritual means would have existed to identify which of the multitude of his disciples who revered him was the Christ. For where the Spirit worked, where even the last vestige of persuasive power was at work, one could not get the better of the Christ. Only where the one was who employed the means that Christ did not know—which he only came to know through the most grievous deed on earth—where Judas was at work, could one get the better of him. One could not have recognized him through anything other than the fact that there was one who placed himself in the service of Ahriman, who indeed came to betrayal through money alone! Thus Christ Jesus was connected to Judas in that what had occurred in the story of the temptation is understandable in the case of God: that Christ, who had just come down to earth, did not know that it is only right for heaven that one does not need stones for bread. Because Ahriman had kept this as his sting, the betrayal took place. And then the Christ still had to enter into the dominion of the Lord of Death, insofar as Ahriman is the Lord of Death. Thus is the connection between the story of the temptation and the Mystery of Golgotha with the betrayal of Judas.

[ 56 ] There is much more to be said about this Fifth Gospel than has been said so far. But as humanity evolves, the other parts of this Fifth Gospel will certainly come to light as well. Through the excerpts I have shared, I have tried to give you an idea of the nature of this Fifth Gospel. As these lectures draw to a close, what I said at the end of the first session comes to mind: that it is indeed only the necessities of our time that have compelled us to speak of this Fifth Gospel already in the present. And I would like to urge you, my dear friends, in a very special way, to treat what has been said about the Fifth Gospel with the appropriate reverence.

[ 57 ] You see, we already have more than enough enemies today, and the way they operate is quite peculiar. I don’t want to discuss this point; you may be familiar with it from the “Mitteilungen.” You are also aware of the curious fact that for quite some time there have been people who speak of how the teaching I proclaim is infected by all manner of narrow-minded Christianity, even by Jesuitism. In particular, it is certain adherents of so-called Adyar Theosophy who, in the worst possible way, preach precisely this Jesuitism and spout nothing but hateful, unscrupulous nonsense. But in doing so, it also becomes clear that from a place where one has raged quite fiercely against the narrow-minded, the wrong, and the reprehensible, our teaching has been utterly falsified. A man who came from America spent many weeks and months getting to know our teaching, wrote it down, and then carried it back to America in a watered-down form, where he published a Rosicrucian Theosophy that he had adopted from us. He does say that he learned many things from us here, but that he was only then called to the Masters and learned more from them. But he concealed the deeper aspects of what he had learned from the cycles that were unpublished at the time, claiming them as his own. That such a thing happened in America—one could, like the old Hillel, remain gentle; one need not let this be taken away, even if it spills over into Europe. At the very place where the greatest fury was directed against us, a translation was made of what had been sent to America about us, and this translation was prefaced with the statement: Although a Rosicrucian worldview was also emerging in Europe, it did so in a narrow-minded, Jesuitical manner. And only in the pure air of California could it continue to flourish. — Well, I’m making my point...! That is the method of our opponents. We can view these things not only with leniency, but even with compassion, but we must not turn a blind eye to them. When such things happen, then even those who, for years, have shown a strange leniency toward those who acted in such an unscrupulous manner should be cautious. Perhaps everyone’s eyes will be opened one day. I truly would not wish to speak of these things if it were not absolutely necessary in the service of truth. One must, after all, see all of this very clearly.

[ 58 ] Even if, on the one hand, these ideas are spread by others, that does not protect us from the fact that, on the other hand, those who are genuinely uncomfortable with them—for there are indeed such people—are waging the battle. I do not wish to bother you with all the foolish nonsense written between these two parties. For all this strange literature now appearing in Germany by Freimark, Schalk, Maack, and so on, need not be taken seriously at all, because the inferiority is simply too great. But there are people who cannot tolerate precisely that which is of the nature of this Fifth Gospel. And perhaps no hatred was as sincere as that which emerged in the reviews that appeared immediately after something of the mystery of the two Jesus children—which, after all, is already part of the Fifth Gospel—became public. True anthroposophists will treat this Fifth Gospel, which is given in good faith, properly. Take it with you, talk about it in the branches, but tell people how it must be treated! Make sure it is not thoughtlessly thrown among those who might mock it.

[ 59 ] With such matters, which are based on the clairvoyant research that is already necessary in our time, we are confronting our entire era—and above all, the prevailing educational trends of our time. We tried to take this to heart as well. Those of us who were present at the laying of the cornerstone of our building know how we tried to bring to mind how necessary it is to proclaim spiritual teachings while faithfully upholding the truth. We tried to bring to mind how far removed our contemporary culture is from this search for truth. One could say that a cry for the Spirit runs through our time, but that people are too arrogant or narrow-minded to truly want to know anything of the true Spirit. That degree of truthfulness necessary to hear the proclamation of the Spirit must first be cultivated. For in what is today called spiritual education, this degree of truthfulness is not present, and, what is worse, people do not realize that it is not present. Treat what has been given here with the Fifth Gospel in such a way that it is treated with reverence in the branches. We do not make this claim out of selfishness, but for an entirely different reason, for the Spirit of Truth must live within us, and the Spirit must stand before us in truth.

[ 60 ] People today talk about the Spirit, but even as they do so, they have no real sense of what the Spirit is. There is a man—and why not name names—who has gained great renown precisely because he speaks of the Spirit over and over again: Rudolf Eucken. He always speaks of the spirit, but if you read through all his books—just try it once—he always says: The spirit exists; one must experience it, one must be with it, one must feel it—and so on. Endless phrases run through all these books, where he writes over and over again: Spirit, spirit, spirit! This is how people speak of the Spirit today, because they are too lazy or too arrogant to go to the sources of the Spirit themselves. And these people are held in high esteem today. Nevertheless, it will be difficult in this day and age to make an impact with what has been so concretely drawn from the Spirit, as had to be done in the description of the Fifth Gospel. This requires seriousness and inner truthfulness. One of Eucken’s most recent writings is this: “Can We Still Be Christians?” There we read on one of the pages, which are nothing other than individual segments that are strung together like a tapeworm from soul and spirit, and spirit and soul, and this happens throughout many volumes, for in doing so one acquires immense prestige, fame, and reputation, when one explains to people that one knows something of the spirit, for people today do not notice while reading all that is accomplished through inner insincerity, and one might think that people must finally learn to read—there we read on one page the sentence: Humanity today has moved beyond believing in demons; one can no longer expect people to believe in demons! — But in another passage in the same book, one reads the curious sentence: “The contact between the divine and the human gives rise to demonic powers.” Yet here the man speaks earnestly of demons, the same man who, as I said before, speaks on another page of the same book. Is this not the deepest inner untruth? The time must finally come when such teachings of the spirit, which are full of innermost untruth, are rejected. But I see no sign that many of our contemporaries notice this inner untruth.

[ 61 ] Even today, when we serve the truth of the Spirit, we stand in contrast to our times. And it is necessary to remember this in order to see clearly what we must do in our hearts if we are to be co-bearers of the proclamation of the Spirit, co-bearers of the new life of the Spirit that humanity so desperately needs. How can one hope, when attempting to lead the human soul to the Christ-being through the teaching of the Spirit, to find much resonance with the prevailing mindset of our time, which today is content with such truths as all clever philosophers and ‘theologians’ proclaim: that there was a Christianity before Christ! For they demonstrate that the cult, indeed individual typical narratives, were already found in the same way earlier in the East. Then the clever theologians explain and tell everyone who wants to hear it that Christianity is nothing other than the continuation of what was already there before. And this literature enjoys great prestige among our contemporaries. It has gained immense prestige, and our contemporaries do not even notice how all this relates to one another.

[ 62 ] When speaking of the Christ Being as it descends in its spiritual nature, and when one finds the Christ-being later worshipped in the same ritual forms as the pagan gods were once worshipped, and if this is to be used to deny the Christ-being altogether—as is already the case today—then this is a line of reasoning employed by someone to whom the following happens: Some random person goes into an inn and leaves their clothes there. We know that the clothes belong to this person. Later, someone like Schiller or Goethe might have come along and, compelled by some circumstance, put on the clothes that had been left behind and walked out wearing the clothes that belonged to the other person. And now someone might walk around, see Goethe in those other clothes, and say: “Well, what on earth are they talking about? What kind of special person is this?” I have examined the clothes very carefully; they belong to so-and-so, who is not a special person at all. — Because the Christ-being has, so to speak, made use of the garments of the old cults, the clever people come along and fail to recognize that the Christ-being has merely put this on like a garment, and that what is now contained within the old cults is the Christ-being.

[ 63 ] And now take entire libraries, take the sum total of today’s scientific monistic perspectives: these are proofs of the garment of the Christ-Essence, which are indeed true! Today, the sniffer of cultural evolution is held in high esteem, and the science of these sniffers is accepted as profound wisdom. We must paint this picture in our souls if we wish to take in—not merely intellectually, but also with our feelings—what is meant by this Fifth Gospel. For what is meant is that we should feel ourselves placed in our time in the right way with our truth, in order to grasp how impossible it is to make comprehensible to the old age that which must come again as a new proclamation. Therefore, a word from the Gospel may be spoken now, as we take our leave of one another once more: With the mindset that prevails in humanity today, no further progress can be made in the next stage of spiritual development. — Therefore, this mindset must be changed, directed toward something else! And those of a compromising nature, who do not wish to form a clear picture of what is here and what must come, will not serve well what is necessary as spiritual teaching and spiritual service to humanity. I owed it to the Fifth Gospel, which is sacred to me. And I take my leave of your hearts and souls with the wish that the bond which has united us through many other things may be strengthened by this spiritual exploration of the Fifth Gospel, which is particularly dear to me. And this may perhaps evoke a warm feeling in your hearts and souls: even though we are physically, spatially, and temporally separated, let us nevertheless remain together, feeling together what we must work out in our souls and what is demanded by the duty that the Spirit imposes upon human souls in our time!

[ 64 ] Hopefully, what we are striving for will continue in the right way through the work of every soul. I believe that this wish serves as the best farewell I could offer, and it is with this that I would like to conclude this series of lectures.