From Akashic Research
The Fifth Gospel
GA 148
22 November 1913, Stuttgart
Translated by Steiner Online Library
The Fifth Gospel I
[ 1 ] We have often spoken of the great, decisive significance of the Christ impulse for the development of humanity on Earth, and we have attempted to characterize the entire nature of this Christ impulse—which we usually summarize in the words “the Mystery of Golgotha”—from a wide variety of perspectives. Recently, it has been my task to investigate some much more concrete aspects of this Mystery of Golgotha and what is connected with it, and it is precisely these investigations that have presented themselves to me in such a way that they make it my duty to speak to our circle of friends about the results of these investigations, especially now, in our time. I have succeeded in gleaning some important insights regarding the life of Christ Jesus from what is called the Akashic Records, of which we have spoken often.
[ 2 ] We have discussed at length here during our recent meetings the upheavals in human development that are currently taking shape, and it is precisely in connection with these upheavals that it is necessary, at this present moment, to bring new insights into the life of Christ Jesus to individual human souls who have come together in the anthroposophical movement, as we understand it. I only ask you to treat what I have to say in this regard with particular discretion and to keep it strictly within our branches. For even the little that has had to be published so far about the life of Christ Jesus—and which was not known from the Gospels or tradition—even that has —I do not even wish to speak of the peculiar critics who wish our movement ill, but even among those who, in a certain way, have at least once shown goodwill toward this movement—has aroused a certain wildness, a wild passion, such as, for example, the story of the two Jesus boys. For nothing seems to be as unwelcome to our time—deeply unwelcome—as drawing attention to the actual results of spiritual research, to concrete, individual results of spiritual research. People still accept it when the spiritual is spoken of in general terms, even if individual strange abstract theories about spiritual life are put forward. But people no longer want to accept it when details from spiritual life are presented in the same way that details from life on the physical plane are presented. Many things that must be said in connection with what I have to present will still be said. For now, I would like to begin with the story itself, and I ask you to accept this story as a kind of Fifth Gospel, which has come into our time just as the other four Gospels came into their time. Let me just say that much in a few words by way of introduction. We will discuss the further motivation tomorrow.
[ 3 ] I would like to begin with the event described in the Gospel of Luke as the appearance of the twelve-year-old Jesus in Jerusalem among the scribes, where he caught their attention with the profound, powerful answers he was able to give them. Thus, as the Gospel of Luke recounts, his relatives, who had lost him, find him there. We know that this event is based on the fact that at that time a great change took place in the life of Jesus, one that can only be understood with the help of spiritual science. We know—to repeat this briefly—that around the beginning of our era two Jesus-children were born, that one descended from the so-called Solomonic line of the House of David, and that in this Jesus-child was incarnated the spirit, or the I, we might say, of Zarathustra. We know that this Jesus child grew up with a great gift, which must seem understandable once one knows the fact that this Jesus child bore within himself the I of Zarathustra. We know that around the same time the other Jesus child was born from the Nathanic line of the House of David, that this one, however, had entered the physical plane with character traits that were essentially different from those of the Jesus child from the Solomonic line. While the one from the Solomonic line showed a special aptitude for everything in his environment that revealed its origin in human culture—up to the point where that human culture had reached at that time—the other Jesus child was, in fact, unskilled in regard to everything that humanity had achieved in its development. He could not quite find his way into what people sought to teach him of all that humanity had attained in the course of historical development. Instead, this Jesus child displayed a wondrous depth and richness of heart and mind, such a richness of feeling that no comparison with any other child can be found in the Akashic Records when one turns one’s gaze to that point in human development where this child is to be found and observed.
[ 4 ] Then the two boys grew up, and just at the moment when they were both about twelve years old, the I of Zarathustra passed from one Jesus boy into the other, and it was that Jesus boy from the line of Nathan—now with the I of Zarathustra within him—who gave the great, powerful answers before the scribes in Jerusalem. Thus, the peculiar nature—one cannot put it any other way—of the Nathanic Jesus-boy and the I of Zarathustra had united. We also know—as I have described on earlier occasions—that the physical mother of the Nathanic Jesus-boy soon passed away, as did the father of the other, and that now, from the mother of the other Jesus-boy —the Solomonic Jesus child also soon wasted away, because he was actually ego-less, as if withered—that the mother of the Solomonic Jesus child and the father of the Nathanic Jesus child now formed a family. The step-siblings, who were descended from the mother and father of the Solomonic line, also came over and now lived in Nazareth, and within this family—that is, with his stepmother or foster mother—the Jesus-child with the Zarathustra-I within him grew up, without, of course, knowing at that age that he had the I of Zarathustra within him. He possessed within himself the abilities that the I of Zarathustra had to possess; but he did not know how to say: I have the I of Zarathustra within me.
[ 5 ] What now came to the fore—what had already been foreshadowed in the great answers he had given to the scribes, but which became increasingly evident—was this: I must describe the life of this boy Jesus, his life from about the age of twelve to eighteen—that something like an inner inspiration took hold within him, a direct knowledge that arose within him, a knowledge of a very peculiar kind, a knowledge that was so immediate and natural to him that he perceived something in his own soul, just as the ancient prophets in the early days of Judaism had received their divine-spiritual revelations from divine-spiritual heights, from spiritual worlds. People had become accustomed to referring in memory to that communication, which had once come to the ancient prophets from the spiritual world, as the great Bath-Kol, as the voice from the spiritual world, the great Bath-Kol. As if the great Bath-Kol had risen again within him, but now within him alone, so it seemed to the twelve-, thirteen-, fourteen-, and eighteen-year-old Jesus boy: a rare, wondrous maturity of inner inspiration, a revival of those inner experiences that only the ancient prophets had had.
[ 6 ] What is particularly striking when one looks at this stage of human development through the lens of the Akashic Records is that, within his entire family and within the entire community in Nazareth, this boy, at a relatively young age, was alone and isolated with his inner revelation, which surpassed anything others could have known at that time. Even his stepmother or foster mother understood him very poorly at that time, and the others even less so. And what matters less in assessing this boy Jesus is forming all sorts of theories, but rather having empathy for what it means to be a mature boy between the ages of twelve and eighteen, to feel something completely foreign rising within him from revelations that were impossible for anyone else at that time, and to stand entirely alone with these revelations, unable to speak to anyone—indeed, what was more: to have to feel that no one would understand him if he were to speak to them. To endure such things as a man is difficult; to experience such things between the ages of twelve and eighteen is something monstrous. To this monstrosity was added another.
[ 7 ] This young Jesus had an open mind to what people of his time were capable of absorbing. Even back then, with the open eyes of his soul, he saw what people, by their very nature, were able to take in and process spiritually and soulfully, and what they had received over the centuries from what had been revealed to the Jews by the ancient prophets. With deep sorrow, with the deepest of grief, he felt: Yes, that is how it was in ancient times; that is how the great Bath-Kol spoke to the prophets; that was an original teaching, of which scant remnants remain among the Pharisees and other scribes. If the great Bath-Kol were to speak to any human being now, there would be no one there to understand the voice from the spiritual world. Things have become different among humanity than they were in the time of the ancient prophets. Even if those great, those glorious revelations of primeval times were to resound today: the ears to understand them would be lacking. This came before the soul of this boy Jesus again and again, and with this suffering he was alone.
[ 8 ] There is nothing quite like turning one’s mind to the sufferings—which must be characterized as I have just done—that took place within this boy Jesus. And one may certainly say: However much we may have expressed significant things about the Mystery of Golgotha in a more theoretical sense, the grandeur of the cosmic or historical perspectives is truly not overshadowed at all when one increasingly takes the individual concrete facts into view as they present themselves solely in their actuality. For it is through nothing other than the observation of these facts that one can truly grasp the course of human development, how a primal wisdom was present even among the Jewish people, and how the impossibility of understanding this primal wisdom existed at the time when it, as it were, one might say, tentatively, in a single soul between the ages of twelve and eighteen, yet only to that soul’s torment, because no one could have understood how this Bath-Kol had spoken, how for that soul this revelation was nothing but endless torment. The boy was entirely alone with these experiences, which, so to speak, represented the suffering of humanity’s historical development in such a concentrated form.
[ 9 ] Now something began to develop in the boy that, I would say, can already be observed in its rudimentary form here and there in life, but which one must imagine magnified infinitely in relation to the life of Jesus. Pain and suffering, experienced from sources similar to those just described, are transformed in the soul—transformed in such a way that the one who can experience such pain and suffering within himself naturally transforms this pain and suffering into goodwill, into love, but not merely into feelings of goodwill and feelings of love, but into the power, into an immense power of love, into the ability to live out this love spiritually and soulfully. And so, as Jesus grew up, something quite unique developed within him.
[ 10 ] Even though his siblings and those closest to him treated him with hostility—because they could not understand him and regarded him as someone who was not quite right in the head—this could not be denied, for it was evident at the time to the outer physical eye, and it is evident now to the eye attuned to the Akashic Records—that wherever this young boy went, whenever he spoke to anyone, even if they could not understand him, they at least responded to what he said; there was something like an actual overflowing of a certain quality from the soul of Jesus into the other soul. It was like the passing over of a fluid of benevolence and love that radiated out. That was the transformed suffering, the transformed pain. Like a soothing breath of love, it came upon those who came into contact with Jesus, even back then, so that one sensed one was in the presence of something special when facing him in any way. It was like a kind of carpentry or joinery that he performed in his father’s house, where Jesus worked diligently. But in the hours when he came to himself, what I have just described took place. These were—the inner experiences are the essential part here—the inner experiences of Jesus of Nazareth, let us say between the ages of twelve and sixteen or eighteen.
[ 11 ] Then, between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, a sort of wandering period began for him. He traveled around a great deal, working here and there in the trade he had also practiced at home, visiting both Jewish and non-Jewish regions. Even back then, something very peculiar manifested itself in a unique way as a result of his experiences in earlier years in his interactions with the people he encountered. And it is important to take this into account, for only by considering this particular trait can one penetrate more deeply into what actually happened at that time in the development of humanity.
[ 12 ] He went about his work, I might say, moving from place to place, visiting families here and there. After work, as we would say today, he would sit with the families, and everywhere one could sense that spirit of goodwill and love whose development I have spoken of. You could feel it everywhere, but you felt it, so to speak, through his actions; for wherever he was, back in those years when he was traveling around between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four, people had the feeling: There really is a special being sitting there. — People didn’t always express it, but they had the feeling: There is a special being sitting among us. - And this manifested itself in the fact that, when he had moved on from a place, people didn’t just talk for weeks about what had been said between him and the others; rather, it often turned out that when people sat together in the evenings while he was away, they had the feeling he was walking in. It was a shared vision. They had the feeling: He is among us again. — And this happened in many, many places: that he had gone away and yet, in essence, was still there, appearing to people in spirit, living among them in spirit, so that they knew: We are sitting together with him.
[ 13 ] As I said, it was a vision in the subjective sense; with regard to the objective, it was the immense power of love that he had expressed in the manner described, and which manifested itself in such a way that the place of his appearance was, in a certain sense, no longer bound to external physical space, to the external physical spatial conditions of the human physical body. It is immensely helpful for understanding the figure of Jesus to see this again and again: how he remains indelibly with those among whom he once dwelt, how he remained with them spiritually, as it were, and returned to them again. Those among whom he once was did not lose him from their hearts again.
[ 14 ] Now, I said, during this journey he also came to pagan regions, and in a pagan region he had a very special experience. From the perspective of the Akashic Records regarding this stage of human development, this experience makes a particularly deep impression. He came to a pagan region. I would like to note explicitly at this point: If you ask me where that was, where he ended up, I must tell you even today: I do not know. Perhaps future research will reveal where that was, but I have not yet succeeded in locating the geographical site. But the fact is absolutely clear. There may be reasons why one cannot pinpoint the geographical location, yet the fact itself can be absolutely clear. For I wish, precisely by telling you these things, not to withhold from you for a single moment the admission of what in this matter has not yet been investigated, so that you may see that my true concern in this matter is to communicate in an exact manner only that for which I am fully able to vouch.
[ 15 ] So he came to a pagan place. There was a dilapidated place of worship there. The priests of that place had long since left; but the people all around were in deep misery, afflicted by disease. Precisely because a terrible disease was raging there, the pagan priests had abandoned the place of worship for this and other reasons. The people felt not only sick, miserable, weary, and burdened, but also abandoned by the priests who had performed the pagan sacrifices, and they suffered terrible torments. Now he came to this region. He was around twenty-four years old at the time. Even back then, it was already very much the case that by his mere appearance he made a very special, a powerful impression, even if he did not even speak, but simply when one saw him approaching. There is truly something very special about this appearance of Jesus for the people of that time among whom he appeared. One felt something quite incredible as he approached. One must take into account that we are dealing with people from a completely different era and a different region. When he approached, one could see the people sensing: There is something very special here; something is emanating from this being that no other human being radiates. — Almost everyone felt this, so to speak; one person found it appealing, another unappealing. Now it is not surprising that it became apparent, spreading like wildfire, so to speak: “A special being is approaching!” — And those people gathered around the sacrificial altar believed that some old pagan priest was coming again, or that he had sent another to perform the sacrificial rite once more. And the crowd that gathered grew ever larger; for the news that a very special being had arrived spread like wildfire. When Jesus saw the crowd, he felt infinite compassion for them, but he had no desire—even though they demanded it vehemently—to perform the sacrifice again, no desire to perform this pagan sacrifice. But when he saw this crowd, the pain over the decayed paganism weighed upon his soul just as the pain over the decayed Judaism had weighed upon him during the years from his twelfth to his sixteenth and eighteenth years of life. And as he looked out over the crowd, he saw everywhere among the crowd, and finally also at the sacrificial altar where he stood, demonic elemental beings. He fell down as if dead; but this falling occurred only because he had fallen into a state of detachment from the world due to the terrifying sight he had witnessed.
[ 16 ] As he lay there, as if dead, the people were seized with fear. People began to flee. But while he lay there in a different state, he had the experience of being transported into that spiritual world, which revealed to him what ancient paganism was like, when the primordial wisdom of paganism was still present in the sacrificial rites of the pagans, as it had been in the ancient mysteries in their original sacred form. It was revealed to him how paganism was in primeval times, just as it had previously revealed itself to him in a different way, just as Judaism had been. But just as this occurred in a spiritual-soul-like, invisible manner—just as that which sought to speak to him through inspiration, as it had come to the ancient prophets, arose—so he had to experience the greatness of paganism in a different way; he had to behold that which can only be described by saying: He saw, as he lay there, the pagan sacrificial sites, which in their cultic arrangement were such that they were a result of the original mystery revelations, were in fact like the outward representation of the mystery drama. At these sacrificial sites, when the sacrifices were performed, the prayers of the people in ancient times—when this still existed in its true form—were infused with the powers of those spiritual beings from the ranks of the higher hierarchies to which the pagans could ascend. As it were, a vision stood before his soul: Yes, when sacrifices were once performed at such an altar, in the times when paganism was in its former splendor, the powers of the good pagan gods would pour down into the sacrificial rites. But now—now not through inspiration, but through direct imagination—he had to experience the decline of paganism with great vividness. He had to experience this now, the decline of paganism as well! And instead of the good powers flowing into the sacrificial rites as in former times, demonic elemental beings now came to life—all manner of elemental emissaries of Lucifer and Ahriman. He now beheld them, and this was the manner in which the decline of paganism appeared before his spiritual-soul eye.
[ 17 ] That was the second kind of great pain: he could tell himself that once upon a time, the pagans had ritual practices that connected humanity with the benevolent beings of certain hierarchies. This has fallen into such decadence and corruption that there are already places like this, where all the good forces have turned into demonic forces, that it has come to the point where the people all around have been abandoned by the old pagan gods. Thus, the decline of paganism presented itself to his soul in a different way than that of Judaism, in an inner, much more vivid way.
[ 18 ] One must indeed be somewhat aware of the difference in feeling and perception between when these feelings and perceptions are the result of such a direct imaginative experience or of theoretical cognition. Indeed, by fixing one’s gaze on this point in the Akashic Records, one gets the impression of an infinitely meaningful yet infinitely painful experience of the history of human development, which in turn is condensed into this imaginative moment.
[ 19 ] He now knew: Divine-spiritual forces had once lived among the pagans; but even if they were alive now, there were no people and no way for people to truly reestablish that ancient relationship. He now experienced this misery of humanity, concentrated and compressed into a brief experience. And as he thus raised himself to perceive what had once been revealed in the good, in the best old heyday of paganism, he heard words—so one might say—that felt to him like the mystery of the whole of human life on earth and its connection with the divine-spiritual beings. I could not help but take what spoke into the soul of the fallen, as if dead, Jesus—who was just beginning to come to himself again at that very moment—and express it in the following way in the words of our German language. And for certain reasons, I had to share these words first with our friends gathered there at the time, when we laid the cornerstone for our Dornach building. What was heard at that time, as primordial wisdom, will be expressed in German words as follows:
Amen
Evil reigns
Witnessing the dissolution of the self
Guilt of selfhood blamed on others
Experienced in our daily bread
In which the will of Heaven does not reign
As man separated himself from Your Kingdom And forgot Your names
You Fathers in Heaven.
[ 20 ] You see, my dear friends, it is something like a reverse Lord's Prayer, but that is how it has to be:
Amen
Evil reigns
Witnessing the dissolution of the self
Guilt of selfhood blamed on others
Experienced in our daily bread
In which Heaven’s will does not reign
As man separated himself from Your Kingdom
And forgot Your names
You Fathers in Heaven.
[ 21 ] Since this had appeared to him as the mystery of human existence on earth and of its connection to the divine-spiritual realm, he came back to himself and saw the fleeing demons and the fleeing people. He had now experienced a great moment in life. He now also knew the state of humanity’s development in relation to paganism. He could say to himself: Even in the vast realms of paganism, there is a downward development. — He had gained this insight not through external observation, but through observation of the soul; this insight showed him: both paganism and Judaism require something entirely new, a completely new impulse!
[ 22 ] We must note that he had these experiences. He did indeed have the Zarathustra-self within him; but he did not know that he had it within him, not even at that time. So he had these experiences as experiences, since there was no teacher there who could have explained them to him theoretically; he had these experiences as experiences.
[ 23 ] Shortly after having this experience regarding paganism, he set out on his journey home. He was around twenty-four years old. When he returned home, it was around the time his father died, and now he was living with his family and his stepmother or foster mother in Nazareth once again. What turned out to be peculiar was that the others understood him less and less. Only his stepmother or foster mother had, after all, cultivated more and more of a certain emotional or loving understanding for the immense—even if it was not particularly complete at that time—that was taking place within this soul. And so, at times, even though the mother was still far from understanding him more intimately, a few words could still be exchanged between them, even if they were still superficial in relation to what Jesus felt, so that the mother grew closer and closer to what lived in Jesus’ soul.
[ 24 ] During this time, however, he had another special experience that brought him his third great suffering. Between the ages of twenty-four and around thirty, he became increasingly involved with a community that had been forming for some time: the Essene community. This Essene community consisted of people who recognized that a certain crisis had arisen in human history, that Judaism and paganism, in their downward course of development, had reached a point where people had to seek a new path in order to find union once again with the divine-spiritual world. And in relation to the ancient mystery methods, it was essentially something new in the way of life that the Essenes sought in order to ascend once more to union with the divine-spiritual world. These Essenes had particularly strict rules of life in order to seek union with the divine-spiritual world once again through a life of renunciation and devotion, a life that went far beyond mere spiritual and intellectual perfection.
[ 25 ] These Essenes were, in fact, quite numerous at that time. Their headquarters were located on the Dead Sea. But they had individual branches throughout the regions of the Near East, and their numbers grew to such an extent that here and there, due to circumstances that inevitably arise in such areas, someone was seized by the Essene idea, felt compelled by the Essene ideal to join the Essenes. Such a person then had to surrender all that was his own to the order, and the order had strict rules for its members. One could not retain any private property while in the order. Now, one person here or there might have this or that small holding. When he became an Essene, this holding—which might have been far away—passed to the Essenes, so that the Essenes had such holdings everywhere. They usually sent younger brothers there, not the one from whom the property originated. From the common property, anyone could support anyone deemed worthy—a measure best understood as serving humanity’s good at different times, for such a measure would be an infinite hardship in our time. But there was one such rule for the Essenes. It consisted in the fact that everyone was authorized to support, from the common property, people whom he deemed worthy, but never those who were related to him. That was strictly excluded—neither close nor distant relatives. Within the order itself there were various degrees. The highest degree was a very secret one. It was very difficult to be admitted to it.
[ 26 ] The fact is that, during this period of Jesus’ life, he was already such that what I have described—a kind of aura emanating from him that affected people as if it were love incarnate, one might say—was present in him to an immense degree. This also had an effect on the Essenes, and so it came to pass that, without actually being a formal member of the Essenes, he was drawn into the Essene community. Between the ages of twenty-four and thirty, he became so closely acquainted with the Essenes that we can say: Much of what he experienced and discussed with them—including their deepest secrets—he had learned.
[ 27 ] He learned about what was once the glory of Judaism between the ages of twelve and eighteen; he came to know the mystery of the Gentiles between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. Thus, through his close association with the Essenes, who allowed him to share in their mysteries, he came to know the mystery of the Essenes—how they developed themselves toward a certain union with the divine-spiritual world. Then he could say to himself: Yes, there is something like a path to finding one’s way back to what constitutes the connection with the divine-spiritual. - And one really sees, after he had been afflicted in two ways—afflicted in two ways with regard to Judaism and paganism—how it sometimes dawned on him, while he was staying among the Essenes, something like a cheerful confidence that one could indeed find a way back up there. But experience was soon to disabuse him of this cheerful confidence.
[ 28 ] There he experienced something that was not learned theoretically, nor as a doctrine, but in the immediacy of life. Once, as he was walking through the gate of the Essenes after having just been united with them, he had a powerful vision that penetrated deeply into his soul. In the immediate presence, he saw two figures fleeing hastily from the gate of the Essenes, and even then it was clear to him in a certain way: it was Lucifer and Ahriman; they were, as it were, running away from the gate of the Essenes. He had this vision more often whenever he passed through the gates of the Essenes. The Essenes were already quite numerous at that time, and one had to show them consideration. Now the Essenes—this was connected to the way they had to shape their souls—were not allowed to pass through the ordinary gates that were painted. The Essene was not allowed to pass through any gate that was painted in the manner of that time. He was only allowed to pass through unpainted gates. There was such a gate in Jerusalem, and in other cities as well. The Essene was not allowed to pass through a painted gate. This is proof that the Essenes were quite numerous at that time. Jesus came to some of these gates, and there the vision repeated itself to him very often. There are no images, he told himself; but instead of the images, he saw Lucifer and Ahriman standing at the gate. Then a vision formed in his soul—which one must consider solely from the perspective of spiritual-soul experience in order to fully appreciate it; by saying it this way, by describing it theoretically, it is of course easy to accept, but one must bear in mind how the emotional experience takes shape when one experiences these things in immediate spiritual reality—it took shape within him through this experience; let me repeat the word I have already used: the conviction born of experience, which can only be expressed in such a way that he could say to himself: It seems as though the Essene path is the one—this has become clear to me on various occasions—on which, through the perfection of the individual soul, one could find the way back into the divine-spiritual worlds; but this is achieved at the cost of the Essenes organizing their way of life in such a way that they keep themselves aloof from everything that would in any way allow Lucifer and Ahriman to approach them. — They arranged everything so that Lucifer and Ahriman could not reach them. Thus Lucifer and Ahriman had to stand at the gate. And now, as he spiritually followed the whole process, he also knew where Lucifer and Ahriman always went. They went to the other people outside who could not follow the Essene path! This struck him terribly, causing even greater suffering than the other experiences. It struck him terribly that he had to admit to himself: Yes, the Essene path could lead individuals upward, but only if these individuals dedicated themselves to a life that cannot be granted to all of humanity—a life that is only possible when individuals separate themselves and flee from Lucifer and Ahriman, who then turn to the great multitude.
[ 29 ] It was his heartfelt desire that a select few might once again experience what the ancient prophets had experienced through the great Bath Kol—that which appeared to the Gentiles during the ancient sacrifice. If what the descendants of the Gentiles and Jews can no longer experience were to be attained by the individual on the Essene path, then the necessary consequence would be that the great remaining mass would be all the more afflicted by Lucifer and Ahriman and their demons. For the Essenes purchase their perfection by sending Lucifer and Ahriman, who thus flee, to other people. At the expense of others they attain their perfection, for their path is such that it can be taken only by a small handful. That was what Jesus now experienced. That was the third great pain, which was further reinforced for him by the fact that, as if emerging from his Essene experiences, while actually living within the Essene community itself, he had something like a visionary conversation with the Buddha—whose community, a closer community, had much in common with Essene life, only was centuries older—that the Buddha revealed to him at that time from the spiritual world: Such a community can only exist, after all, if not all people, but only a small handful participate in it. — It sounds almost primitive, again, to say: The Buddha revealed to Jesus that the Buddha monks can only go around with the alms bowl if there are only a few such monks, and the others, so to speak, atone for it with a different life. It sounds primitive when put that way. But it is something else entirely when the responsible spiritual power—in this case, the Buddha—reveals this in a situation such as that in which Jesus of Nazareth now found himself.
[ 30 ] And so, in the years between his twelfth and thirteenth, Jesus of Nazareth—having experienced suffering threefold—had come to understand the development of humanity down to its very details. What now lived in his soul, what had accumulated within that soul, he was able to express in a conversation with this mother after the age of twenty-nine, once his stepmother or foster mother had gradually risen to an understanding of his nature and had drawn close to him. And a conversation that Jesus of Nazareth had around the age of thirty with his stepmother or foster mother became important, infinitely important—a conversation in which, as if poured together in just a few hours, everything that constituted the experiences of those years of Jesus of Nazareth’s life was truly expressed, and which became significant precisely because it was so. Among spiritual experiences, there are few that are as significant—at least for a certain stage of spiritual experience—as those one has when one turns one’s gaze to what Jesus of Nazareth now had to say to his stepmother or foster mother.