From Akashic Research
The Fifth Gospel
GA 148
17 December 1913, Cologne
Translated by Steiner Online Library
The Fifth Gospel I
[ 1 ] It will be my task, on the occasion of this evening and tomorrow evening, to speak a little about what we are accustomed to calling the “Mystery of Golgotha,” and I shall attempt to speak of it in a somewhat different way than has been done so far. I would like to say that the discussions to date regarding this Mystery of Golgotha have had a content that, while occult in nature, has been even more so of a theoretical-occult nature. We have spoken of the nature and significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the development of humanity. Thoughts have been offered on the fact that it is, so to speak, the central event for the entire development of humanity on Earth, and to what extent it is this central event. These thoughts have indeed been drawn from the sources of occult research. The sources of thought addressed here are those that, as it were, radiate from the Mystery of Golgotha, extend beyond it, and are brought to life in our earthly evolution. From what lives in the evolution of humanity on Earth, if perceived with a clairvoyant gaze, one can find what has been described as the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.
[ 2 ] But now it falls to me to speak in more detail about what can be said in concrete terms regarding the events that took place at the beginning of our era. I will have to speak about the events which, in a sense, radiated in their power that which lives on in the living Earth aura and can be observed occultly. Tomorrow I will then speak a little about the reasons why these things should be discussed precisely now, in our age, within anthroposophical circles. Today, however, I will try to hint at some of what took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. And I hope that in your hearts, in your souls, the event of Golgotha—as it has been characterized more in the form of ideas—will not lose its significance simply because we now look directly at what took place back then, so to speak, taking it in quite concretely.
[ 3 ] I have already touched on some essential points regarding the subject at hand when discussing the Gospel of Luke and in that series of lectures on the so-called Gospel of Matthew. The fact is that two boys named Jesus were born at roughly the same time at the beginning of our era. I have pointed out that these two Jesus children, who were born at that time, differed greatly from one another in character and abilities. One of the Jesus children, whose description is still illuminated by the so-called Gospel of Matthew, descends from the Solomonic line of the House of David. In him lived the soul or the I of the one we know as Zarathustra.
[ 4 ] When we consider such an incarnation, we must first be clear about one thing in particular: Even if such a high individuality reincarnates—as Zarathustra did, specifically at the time he was born as Jesus—this individuality did not by any means have to know, in childhood or youth, that it was this individuality. It is not necessary for there to be a consciousness that would express itself in the words: ‘I am so-and-so.’—That is not the case. What is the case, however, in such an instance, is that those elevated capacities which a human soul can acquire by having undergone such an incarnation manifest themselves significantly at an early age and then determine the entire basic structure of the character of the child in question. Thus the Solomonic Jesus-child—as I would like to call him—in whom the I of Zarathustra lives, is endowed with high abilities, and this is the characteristic feature: he is endowed with such abilities that enable him to easily penetrate into what lives in his surroundings as the achievement of what humanity has conquered on earth through its ongoing culture. In the environment of such a child, especially back then, the entire culture of humanity lived on in the words, the gestures, the actions—in short, in everything one could see and hear. An ordinary child absorbs little of what he sees and hears. This boy, however, absorbed with great inner genius even the sparsest hints in which what humanity had conquered was expressed; in short, he proved to be highly gifted for everything that human culture had produced up to that point in terms of what could be learned in a school setting. Today, one would call such a boy a highly gifted child. Such was the Solomonic Jesus boy. Until his twelfth year, he quickly learned whatever he could from his surroundings.
[ 5 ] The other boy Jesus, whose character shines through—though one cannot say more than that—in the descriptions of the Gospel of Luke, was of a completely different sort. He descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David. He was, however, completely ungifted when it came to what can be learned externally. Until the age of twelve, he showed no interest whatsoever in anything that could be acquired through formal schooling from human culture. On the other hand, from his earliest childhood he displayed to the highest degree what one might call: genius of the heart, compassion for every human joy, for every human suffering. He proved himself particularly gifted in that he lived less within himself, was less able to acquire the kind of competence that can be acquired on earth, but rather felt the suffering and joy of others as his own suffering and joy from the earliest childhood, and was able to put himself in the place of other people’s souls; he demonstrated this to the highest degree.
[ 6 ] There is the greatest conceivable difference between the two Jesus boys, as they appear in observations based on the Akashic Records. Now, after the two boys had reached the age of twelve, the event occurred that I have already described on several occasions: that during the journey to Jerusalem undertaken by the parents with the Nathanic Jesus-child, the I of Zarathustra—which until then had remained in the other, the Solomonic Jesus-child—left that body and took possession of the physical form of the Nathanic Jesus-child. Thus it came to pass that everything this royal I had been able to appropriate could now work in the soul of the other, the Nathanic Jesus-child, and this child could now, with all the power of Zarathustra and without knowing it, work in such a way as to arouse the astonishment of the scribes among whom he taught, as the Bible also describes. I have also hinted that the other one, the Solomonic Jesus-child, from whom the I had departed, wasted away very quickly and died in a relatively short time.
[ 7 ] It must certainly be noted that the possibility of life does not immediately cease for a person who, as has just been described for the Solomonic Jesus-child, surrenders his ego. Just as a ball rolls on for a while, as it were, through its own inner force, so such a being lives on for a while through the force that lives within it; and for those who cannot observe human souls in a subtle way, there is not a very great difference between what presents itself as a soul that still has its ego and one that has lost its ego. For in ordinary life, when we encounter a soul, the ego does not act so directly. What we experience in a person, what we perceive of them, is to the very least degree a direct revelation of the ego; it is a revelation of the ego through the astral body. But that other Jesus child retained the astral body; and only the one who can carefully distinguish—and this is not easy—whether old habits, old thoughts continue to work in a soul, or whether new things are still being taken in from now on, can thereby perceive whether the I is still there or not. But a wasting away begins, a kind of dying off, withering away, and so it was with this Jesus boy.
[ 8 ] By a certain karmic design, shortly after the passing of the I of Zarathustra into the other Jesus child, the biological mother of the Nathanic Jesus child and the father of the Solomonic Jesus child also died, and the father of the Nathanic Jesus child and the mother of the Solomonic Jesus child became a married couple. The Nathanic Jesus-child had no biological siblings, and the step-siblings he now gained were precisely the siblings of the Solomonic Jesus-child. The two families became one, which henceforth lived in the little village that was then given the name Nazareth; so that when we now speak of the Nathanic Jesus boy, in whom the ego of Zarathustra now lived, we use the expression: Jesus of Nazareth.
[ 9 ] Today I would also like to share some details from the early life of this Jesus of Nazareth, as it can be explored through the Akashic Records, so that we may thereby gain an understanding of a certain significant historical moment in Earth’s development, which then prepared the way for the Mystery of Golgotha, which we will discuss tomorrow.
[ 10 ] This life of Jesus of Nazareth unfolds in three phases that are clearly distinguishable from one another to the Seer. For it had already become evident in his conversations with the scribes that, as early as his twelfth year, through the transition of the Zarathustra-I, an inner power had come to life within him—the power to be enlightened, to receive enlightenment, and to connect it with what lived as a capacity within the Zarathustra soul. If it had already become evident that there was an immense power of inner experience in this soul, one can now observe in the adolescent Jesus, from the twelfth to the seventeenth and eighteenth years, how, emerging from the depths of the soul, the inner illuminations become ever richer and richer, and in particular, these are now insights that relate to the entire development of the ancient Hebrew people and of the Hebrew people in general.
[ 11 ] Just as Jesus of Nazareth was placed among the Hebrew people, so too was the greatness of what had once been given to this people as direct mysteries of the world in the ancient times of the prophets no longer discernible within this Hebrew people. Much had been inherited from the ancient revelations of the prophets, but the original abilities to receive spiritual mysteries directly from the spiritual worlds had long since faded away. They were taken from the established scriptures. There were, however, some—such as the famous Philo—who, through their individual development, were still able to perceive something of what had been proclaimed to the ancient prophets. But the power that had existed in the early days of the Hebrew people, in the time of the revelations, was long since gone in these few individuals. A definite decline in the spiritual development of the Hebrew people was evident. But what had once been there, what had been revealed in the time of the prophets, now emerged as inner enlightenment, as if from the depths of the soul of Jesus of Nazareth.
[ 12 ] But I wish to draw your attention less to this historical fact—that what had once been revealed in the time of the prophets reemerged in a single individual through inner enlightenment. Rather, I would like to direct your attention to what it means that, in infinite solitude, a relatively young soul—the soul of the thirteen- to fourteen-year-old Jesus of Nazareth—felt a revelation rising within him that none of the other people around him felt rising within themselves, a revelation of which even the best among them had at most only a faint reflection. Place your feelings within the life of such a soul, standing alone with one of humanity’s greatest, and take to heart that the Mystery of Golgotha had to be prepared by those lonely feelings and lonely sensations taking root in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. When one stands, as it were, on an island of the soul with something that one—like Him, who even in His childhood could feel with all people—would like to bestow upon all people, but cannot bestow because one sees that souls have descended to a level where they can no longer receive it; when one feels all this: to know, in pain and suffering, something that others cannot receive, yet which one so dearly wishes might also live in their souls—then one prepares oneself for a mission. For this, Jesus of Nazareth prepared himself. This gave his soul the fundamental tone, the fundamental nuance, that he had to tell himself again and again: A voice from the spiritual world speaks to me. If humanity could hear it, it would be an infinite blessing to them. In ancient times there were people who could hear it, but now there are no ears left to hear. — This suffering of being alone pressed itself more and more deeply into his soul.
[ 13 ] Such was the inner life of Jesus of Nazareth from about the age of twelve to eighteen. As a result, he was misunderstood not only by his biological father and his foster mother, but also by his step-siblings, who often mocked him and even regarded him as half-mad. He worked diligently in his father’s carpentry shop. But while he worked, the feelings I have just described and alluded to lived within his soul. Then, when he was about eighteen years old, he set out on his travels. Working for various families and with various craftsmen in his trade, he traveled through Palestine and the surrounding pagan villages. He was thus guided by his karma. As he wandered through Palestine in this way, the full peculiarity of his nature became apparent to all those in whose company he found himself. By day he worked; in the evenings he sat with the people. And the people with whom he sat, from about the age of nineteen to twenty-two, all had the feeling during these gatherings with him—a feeling they did not always bring clearly to consciousness, but felt all the more distinctly— that there was a person of a very special character among them, the like of whom they had never seen before, indeed, more than that, the like of whom they could never have imagined could exist. They did not know how to deal with him.
[ 14 ] If one wishes to understand this, one must take into account something that must be considered at all times if one truly wishes to penetrate the various mysteries of human evolution: that experiencing something like what I have hinted at regarding the young Jesus of Nazareth causes the deepest pain in the soul. But this pain is transformed into love. And much of the highest love that exists in life is transformed pain of this kind. Deepest pain has the ability to transform itself into love that does not merely act like ordinary love through the mere presence of the loving being, but rather radiates, as it were, like far-reaching auric rays. So that the people among whom Jesus was at that time believed they had much more than just a human being in their midst. And when he had moved on from a place, it had such an effect that when the people sat together again in the evening, they truly had the feeling of his presence. They felt as if he were still there. And this always happened, again and again, long after he had left a place where he had stayed: that the people sitting around the table in the evening had shared visions. They saw him enter as a spiritual form. Every single one of them had this vision at the same time—that Jesus had come among them again, that he was speaking with them, telling them things, just as he once had in physical presence. Thus he lived visibly among the people, even when he had long since departed. This was precisely the pain transformed into love that made him so effective. The people with whom he had been felt, as a result, connected to him in a special way. They never really felt separated from him again; they felt that he had remained with them and that he kept coming back.
[ 15 ] But he did not merely wander through the region of Palestine; his karma also led him—discussing the specific circumstances behind why his karma led him there would take us too far afield today—to pagan lands as well. So it was there that he went after he had become acquainted with the declining state of Judaism. And he came to realize that in the ritual practices of the pagans, just as in the pagan religious observances as well as in Judaism, that which had once lived as primordial revelation in ancient paganism had died out. Thus he had to experience the second phase in perceiving humanity’s descent from a once spiritual height. But in a different way than in Judaism, he was to perceive how paganism had descended.
[ 16 ] The way he perceived the decline of Judaism was more of an inner experience, gained through inner enlightenment. There he saw how the revelations from the spiritual world, which had once been proclaimed by the ancient prophets, had ceased because there were no longer any ears left to hear them. He came to understand the state of paganism in a place where the ancient pagan worship had fallen into particular decay, where the decline of paganism was also evident in outward signs. The people in the town he had now entered were afflicted with leprosy and other hideous diseases. Some had become malicious, others were crippled or lame. They were shunned by the priests, who had fled from those places. When they caught sight of him, the news spread like wildfire that someone very special was coming. For he had now attained something even in his outward appearance that was like transformed pain, like love. One could see that a being was approaching who had never before walked the earth. One said this to another. It had spread quickly, so that many ran to him, for the people believed that a priest had been brought to them who would once again perform their sacrifices. After all, their priests had fled! So they ran to him. This is how the Akashic Records show it, as I am telling you. He had no intention of performing the pagan sacrifice. But now the whole mystery of the descent of the pagan spirit epoch revealed itself to him, as in vivid imaginings. He could now perceive directly what had flowed into the secrets of the pagan mysteries, what had lived within the pagan mysteries: that the forces of high divine beings had flowed down upon the sacrificial altars. Now, however, instead of the forces of the good spirits, all manner of demons, messengers of Lucifer and Ahriman, were pouring down upon the sacred altars. Not so inwardly through enlightenment as in Judaism, but as in outward visions, he perceived the decline of pagan spiritual life.
[ 17 ] It is quite another matter—something entirely different, so to speak—to learn about these things theoretically than to witness how demons now descended upon a sacrificial altar, upon which divine-spiritual forces had once flowed down, causing abnormal states of mind, illnesses, and so on. To behold this in spiritual vision is something different from knowing about it theoretically. But Jesus of Nazareth was to recognize this in direct spiritual vision; he was to see how the emissaries of Lucifer and Ahriman were working; he was to see what they had wrought among the people. He suddenly fell down as if dead. The people fled in terror. But while he lay there as if in a trance, as if transported into a spiritual world, he had a sense of all that the ancient revelations had once spoken to the Gentiles. And just as he had heard mysteries that had been proclaimed to the ancient prophets and that now no longer even lived on as a shadow in Jewish culture, so he could now, through spiritual inspiration, hear the manner in which these mysteries had been proclaimed to the pagans.
[ 18 ] What made the deepest impression on him was something I have attempted to explore, and which I first shared on the occasion of the laying of the cornerstone for our building in Dornach. One could call it “The Reversed Lord’s Prayer,” since it was like the reverse of what constitutes the essential content of the prayer attributed to Jesus Christ by his disciples. Jesus of Nazareth now perceived something like a reversed Lord’s Prayer, so that he could sense that these words contain, as it were, the compressed mystery of human becoming and the embodiment in earthly incarnations:
[ 19 ] 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 name<
You Fathers in Heaven.
[ 20 ] This is, to put it in stammering words, what expresses something like the laws of the incarnating human being who comes from the macrocosm into the microcosm. Ever since I became acquainted with these words, I have found them to be an extraordinarily significant formula for meditation. They have a power over the soul that is quite extraordinary, and one notices, so to speak, the greater the power these words possess the more one contemplates them. And then, when one unpacks them and seeks to understand them, it becomes evident how, in fact, the mystery of the human being and the destiny of humanity are compressed within them, and how the reversal of the words gave rise to the microcosmic Lord’s Prayer, which Christ then proclaimed to his followers.
[ 21 ] But Jesus perceived not only this mystery of the pagan primordial revelation. When he awoke from the vision, he came to know, through the fleeing people and demons, the entire mystery of paganism. That was the second immeasurable pain that sank into his soul. He had first come to know the decline of Judaism in such a profound way by recognizing what had once been revealed to Judaism before its decline. Now he came to know the same thing among the pagans. In this way, he brought to conscious experience the realization that humanity in his surroundings had to live in accordance with the words: They have ears and do not hear that which constitutes the mysteries of the world. — Thus he had to conquer the boundless compassion he had always felt for humanity, which can be expressed in the words: Now he could see; humanity should have the content of his vision, but where are the beings to convey it to humanity?
[ 22 ] He had to go through experiences like this until he was about twenty-four years old. Then his karma led him home at the time his father died. He then lived with his step-siblings and his foster or stepmother. While his stepmother had previously understood him very little, she now showed more and more understanding for the great pain he carried within him. And so further experiences followed from the age of twenty-four to twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty, during which he found more and more—though it was difficult here as well—understanding from his stepmother or foster mother. These were also the years in which he became more closely acquainted with the Essene Order. Today I would like to touch only on the main moments of how Jesus came to know the Essene Order. This was an order in which people united who set themselves apart from the rest of humanity and who developed a special life of body and soul in order to climb back up through this life to that primordial revelation of the Spirit which humanity had lost. Through rigorous exercises and a strict way of life, the ascending souls were to reach a level through which they could be reunited with the spiritual realms from which the primordial revelations had flowed.
[ 23 ] It was within this circle that Jesus of Nazareth also met John the Baptist, but neither of them became Essene in the strict sense of the word. This is precisely what the Akashic Records reveal in this regard. But from all that I have described, it is clear that there was a human personality of a very special kind who had an extraordinary effect on everyone; for she had made such an extraordinary impact on the Gentiles, as I have described, that even the Essenes — even though they otherwise guarded what they had attained for their souls as the holiest of secrets, revealing nothing of it to outsiders — spoke freely with Jesus about important secrets of the order, about the most essential things they had attained in the striving of their souls. Thus Jesus came to know how a path existed at that time for the human soul to ascend to the heights where the primordial souls of humanity had once dwelt and from which they had descended. Yes, he could see from the Essenes how it was still possible for human beings, through special exercises, to climb back up to these heights. But it already made a deep, one might say—if the trivial word is permitted in this context—uncomfortable impression on his soul that such an Essene, if he wished to ascend to these heights, had to separate himself from the rest of humanity and lead a life outside the circle of other people. This was entirely contrary to the spirit of universal love for humanity as felt by Jesus of Nazareth, who could not bear the idea that any spiritual treasure should exist that could not be appropriated by all of humanity, but only by individuals at the expense of the whole of humanity. And often he left the places of the Essenes with the greatest sorrow. What he felt can be expressed in these words: There, too, are individuals—and there can always be only a few—who find their way back to the primal revelation; but precisely when these few separate themselves, the others must live all the more in decay. They cannot ascend, for they must perform the coarse material labor for those who separate themselves.
[ 24 ] As he was once again walking out of a gate at the Order’s settlement, he saw in his mind’s eye two figures fleeing from the gate. Of these two figures, whom we today call Lucifer and Ahriman in our anthroposophical language, he had the impression that the Essenes were protecting themselves from them, driving them away through their exercises, their ascetic life, and the strict rules of the Order. Nothing from Lucifer and Ahriman was to come near these souls. Thus Jesus of Nazareth saw Ahriman and Lucifer flee, but he now also knew: precisely because such a place had been created where Ahriman and Lucifer were not permitted, where one wanted to know nothing of them, precisely because of this they were drawn all the more to other people, since they had to flee from these places. This was now before him. Again, this has a very different effect when one knows it only through theory than when one sees what individual souls do for their own advancement and how, through this, Lucifer and Ahriman are sent to other people as individual souls rid themselves of them. Now he knew that the path the Essenes took was not a path to salvation, but rather a path that, through isolation at the expense of the rest of humanity, sought only their own advancement.
[ 25 ] An indescribable compassion came over him. He took no joy in the rise of the Essenes, for he knew that while some people rose, others had to sink all the deeper. All this affected him all the more because, time and again, at other gates of the Essenes—there were several such sites—he saw the image of the fleeing Lucifer and Ahriman, who stood before the gates but could not enter these monastic sites. Thus he knew how the customs and rules of the Order—following the pattern of the Essene rules—drove Lucifer and Ahriman toward other people. And this was the third great, infinite pain he felt over the descent of humanity, which had spread so deeply over his soul.
[ 26 ] I have already mentioned that his stepmother or foster mother came to understand more and more what was going on in his soul. Now what took place was significant as a preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha: A conversation took place—as research in the Akashic Records reveals—between Jesus of Nazareth and his stepmother or foster mother. Her understanding had already advanced to such an extent that he could speak to her of the threefold pain he had experienced regarding the decline of humanity, which he had witnessed in the realms of Judaism, paganism, and Essene teachings. And as he described to her all his lonely pain and what he had experienced, he saw that this had an effect on her soul.
[ 27 ] One of the most profound impressions one can gain in the field of occultism is precisely to come to know the nature of this conversation. For in the entire realm of Earth’s evolution, one cannot really find anything similar—I do not say anything greater, for of course the Mystery of Golgotha is greater—but one cannot find anything else like it. What he spoke to the mother were not merely words in the ordinary sense, but they were like living beings passing from him to the stepmother, and his soul imbued these words with its own powers. Everything he had suffered so infinitely intensely passed over into the stepmother’s soul during the conversation, as if on the wings of the words. His own self accompanied every word, and it was not merely an exchange of words or thoughts; it was a living journey of the soul from him into the stepmother’s soul—words of his infinite love, but also of his infinite pain. And so he was able to unfold to her, as in a great tableau, everything he had experienced three times over. What was taking place there was further heightened by the fact that Jesus of Nazareth gradually allowed the conversation to shift into something that had emerged for him from the threefold suffering of the descent of humanity.
[ 28 ] It is truly difficult to put into words what he said to his stepmother now, as if summarizing his own experiences. But since we are prepared in spiritual science, we can attempt to describe the meaning of the conclusion of the conversation with the help of spiritual scientific formulas and expressions. Of course, what I am about to say was not spoken in these exact words, but it will give a rough idea of what Jesus intended to evoke as a mental image in the stepmother’s soul: When one looks back at the development of humanity, the entire life of humanity on Earth appears much like the life of an individual human being, only altered for later generations, who remain unaware of it. The post-Atlantean life of humanity, one might say, appeared before the soul of Jesus of Nazareth: how, immediately after the great natural event, a primordial Indian culture developed, where the great holy Rishis were able to bring their immense wisdom to humanity. In other words: there was a spiritual-intellectual culture there. Yes, he said, just as there is a childlike stage in the individual human being between birth and the age of seven, where entirely different spiritual forces are at work than in later life, so did spiritual forces operate in this ancient Indian era. Because these forces were not limited to the first seven years but extended throughout the entire life, humanity was in a different stage of evolution than it would be later. Back then, people knew throughout their entire lives what a child today knows and experiences up to the age of seven. Today, people think in this way between the ages of seven and fourteen and between fourteen and twenty-one, precisely because they have lost the childhood powers that are shut off in us today by the age of seven. Because these powers—which today exist only until the age of seven—were poured out over the entire human life back then, people in the first post-Atlantean epoch were clairvoyant. They rose higher with the forces that today live in human beings only until the age of seven. Yes, that was the Golden Age in human development. Then came another age, when the forces that are otherwise active only between the ages of seven and fourteen were at work throughout all of humanity, spread across the entire lifespan. Then came the third epoch, in which the forces were active that today operate between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one. And then we lived in an epoch in which the forces were spread out over the whole of human life, forces that are otherwise active between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-eight. But we are already approaching, as Jesus of Nazareth said, the midpoint of human life, which lies in the thirties, where for the individual human being the forces of youth cease to rise, where he begins to undergo the descent. We now live in the age corresponding to the twenty-eighth to thirty-fifth year of the individual human being, where the human being begins the descent of life. While other forces still remain in the individual that allow them to continue living, there is nothing left in humanity as a whole. This is the great sorrow: that humanity is to grow senile, having left its youth behind, that it stands at the age between twenty-eight and thirty-five. Where do new forces come from? The forces of youth are exhausted.
[ 29 ] Jesus spoke to his stepmother in such a way about the decline that was beginning for the entire life of evolving humanity that an unspeakable pain was expressed in his words, so that one could see it was now as if hopeless, completely hopeless for humanity. The forces of youth are exhausted; humanity can now face old age. The individual human being, he knew, carries on with his life—as it were, by virtue of the fact that a remnant of strength remains to him—between the age of thirty-five and death. But humanity had no such thing; something had to enter into it first: that which is necessary for the individual life of a human being between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-five. On a macrocosmic level, the Earth had to be permeated by the force that otherwise permeates the human being during the ascent of life between the ages of twenty-eight and thirty-four.
[ 30 ] That humanity as such is growing old—that is the thought, that is the feeling one now perceives in the Akashic Records and senses during the account of Jesus of Nazareth. As he spoke thus to the mother, as the very meaning of human evolution, so to speak, resounded from his words, he knew in an instant—when, as it were, everything that was within his being overflowed into his words—that something of his own being was departing with them, for his words had become what he himself was. That was also the moment when that soul-presence, which had lived in his biological mother—who had died on Earth after the departure of the Zarathustra-I into the body of the other Jesus-child and had lived in spiritual regions since Jesus’s twelfth year—now flowed into the soul of the stepmother or foster mother. From that moment on, she was able to spiritualize the soul of the stepmother, so that it lived together with the soul of the biological mother of the Nathanic Jesus boy.
[ 31 ] But Jesus of Nazareth had so intensely identified himself with the words into which he had imprinted all his pain for humanity that this self had vanished as if from his physical form, and his physical form was now once again as it had been when he was a little boy, only imbued with all that he had suffered since the age of twelve. The ego of Zarathustra had departed, and only what remained through the power of his experiences lived on in his three physical forms. An impulse now took hold within these three forms; it drove him onto a path that then led him to John the Baptist at the Jordan. As if in a kind of dream, which was, however, not a dream but a higher consciousness, he walked the path, and only the three shells were there, imbued with spirit and pulsing with the effects of the experiences since the age of twelve. The ego of Zarathustra had departed. The three sheaths guided him in such a way that he scarcely perceived anything of what was around him. Precisely because the ego was gone, he lived entirely in the contemplation of human destiny, including that which was lacking in humanity.
[ 32 ] As he was walking along the road to John the Baptist at the Jordan, he met two Essenes with whom he had often conversed. In his present state, he did not recognize the two Essenes, for his sense of self was so far removed. But they knew him. And so they addressed him: Where are you going, Jesus of Nazareth? — I have tried to put into words what he said to them. He spoke the words in such a way that they did not know where they came from; they came from him and yet not from him: To where souls of your kind do not wish to look, where the pain of humanity can find the rays of the forgotten light.
[ 33 ] Those were the words as they came from him. And they did not understand what he was saying; they now realized that he did not recognize them. And they continued, “Jesus of Nazareth, do you not know us?” — And now even stranger words followed. It was as if he had spoken to them: “You are like lost lambs, but I was the shepherd’s son from whom you have run away. If you truly recognize me, you will soon run away again. It has been a long time since you fled from me into the world.”
[ 34 ] The Essenes did not know what to make of him, for as he seemed to speak, his eyes took on a very peculiar expression. They appeared to be looking outward and yet inward at the same time. They were eyes whose expression seemed to contain a kind of reproach directed at the souls he was addressing. They were eyes through which a gentle love shone, but a love that became a reproach to the Essenes, one that sprang from their own hearts. This is roughly how one might characterize what the Essenes felt when they heard him: What kind of souls are you? Where is your world? Why do you cloak yourselves in deceptive veils? Why does a fire burn within you that is not kindled in my Father’s house?
[ 35 ] And at these words, their souls fell silent, as it were. And he continued: "You bear the mark of the Tempter, who struck you after your flight. With his fire, he has made your wool gleam. The hairs of this wool pierce my gaze. You strayed lambs! He has saturated your souls with pride.
[ 36 ] When he had spoken these words: “Your wool has become glaringly bright; the hairs of this wool pierce my eyes”—one of the Essenes spoke up and said: “Have we not shown the Tempter the door? He no longer has any part in us.”—When the Essene had spoken these words, Jesus continued: “You did indeed show him the door, yet he ran off and went to the other people. Thus he attacks them from all sides. You do not exalt yourselves by humiliating others. You only imagine that you are exalting yourselves because you allow others to be diminished! You remain as lowly as you are, and it is only because you make others smaller that you feel great.”
[ 37 ] Jesus of Nazareth spoke in such a way that the Essenes could understand. And when he had spoken these words, it was so overwhelming for the Essenes that they could no longer see. Their eyes grew dark, and Jesus of Nazareth seemed to vanish before their eyes. But then, when he had seemingly vanished, they saw his face as if from afar, yet magnified to gigantic proportions, like a mirage before them, far, far away, and as if speaking from this mirage, words came to them, something they perceived as: Vain is your striving, for empty is your heart, which you have filled only with the spirit that deceptively conceals pride within the guise of humility.
[ 38 ] Then this mirage, too, had vanished, and they stood there, despondent and dismayed. When they could see again, they realized that he had already walked a good distance away while they had been looking at his face. And they could do nothing but acknowledge that he had already moved on. Feeling despondent, they continued on to their Essene hostel, and they never spoke of what they had experienced, but remained silent about it for the rest of their lives. As a result, they had indeed become the most profound in spirit among their fellow brothers, but they remained silent and became exceedingly taciturn brothers who spoke nothing beyond what was necessary for the most basic daily communication. Their brothers did not know why their nature had changed so. Until their death, they revealed nothing of what they had heard. They thus experienced in a very special way what was taking place as the Mystery of Golgotha. But for the others, what they had experienced was as if imperceptible.
[ 39 ] After Jesus had walked a little further along the road, he encountered a man who was deeply despairing in his soul. But, as mentioned, Jesus was so detached from earthly circumstances that he could not comprehend that something resembling a human being was approaching him. His presence made an all the more profound impression on this man, who was so desperate in his soul that he gave the impression of the deepest suffering. The powerful impression that this soul had upon seeing Jesus of Nazareth as he approached elicited from Jesus of Nazareth words that might be rendered as follows: “Where has your soul led you? I saw you many thousands of years ago; back then you were different!
[ 40 ] This desperate man heard all of this as if spoken by the apparition of Jesus of Nazareth, who was just approaching. These words compelled the desperate man to say the following. On the one hand, he felt the need of his soul to speak his mind; on the other hand, to find an answer to his own fate: I have attained high positions in my life. I was always learning; through what I learned, I rose among my fellow human beings to ever higher and higher positions. Each position made me prouder, and I often said to myself: What a rare person you are, rising so brilliantly above your fellow men! I felt the worth of my soul, which must be worth more than the souls of other people. My pride grew with every new position. Then I had a dream one day. Oh, what a terrible dream that was! Not only did I dream it, but as I dreamed, my soul was filled with shame. For I was ashamed to dream such a thing. I had been so proud in my life! And now I was dreaming something I would never have wanted to dream, and yet it seemed good to me in the dream. I dreamed that I asked myself the question: Who made me great? And there stood a being before me who said: I made you great, I exalted you, but in return you are mine! — That was what I felt as the deepest shame, that I now received the revelation that I was not a soul who had been chosen, who had risen through my own power; another being had exalted me. In the dream, I took to my heels. When I awoke, I truly took to my heels, having abandoned all my dignities. I did not know what I was seeking, and so I have been wandering about in the world for a long time now, fleeing from myself and from what I have achieved, ashamed of everything I once thought in my arrogance.
[ 41 ] When the despairing man had spoken these words, the being who had spoken to him in the dream stood before him once more, between him and Jesus of Nazareth. This dream-being obscured the figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And when the ‘dream image’ had transformed again, as if it had dissolved into mist, Jesus had already moved on. When the desperate man looked around, he saw him already quite a distance away. So, in his despair, he had to continue on his way.
[ 42 ] Then a leper came toward Jesus of Nazareth; his leprosy and his suffering had already reached their peak. And because of what this soul was feeling, the being of Jesus of Nazareth felt compelled once again to speak words that the leper heard. Once again, the words were: “Where has your soul led you? I saw you many millennia ago; you were different then!”
[ 43 ] These words prompted the leper to speak, just as the despairing man had been prompted to speak before. The leper said: I do not know how I came to have this disease; it crept up on me gradually. And people would no longer tolerate me among them. I had to wander into the wilderness, barely able to beg at the doors for what people threw at me. Then one night I came near a dense forest. There I saw, coming toward me from a clearing, a tree that, glowing of its own accord, was flashing at me. I felt an urge to approach the tree that was flashing so brightly at me. The tree drew me to it. And as I approached the tree, a skeleton stepped out of the tree’s light toward me. I knew: it is Death standing before me in this form. And Death said to me: I am you; I feed upon you. Do not be afraid! — But the skeleton continued: Why are you afraid? Did you not once love me through many lifetimes? Only you did not know that you loved me, for I had appeared to you as a beautiful archangel; you believed you loved him. — And then it was not Death standing before me, but the archangel whom I had often seen, and of whom I knew: That was the image I had loved. Then he had vanished. But I did not awaken until the next morning, lying by the tree, and found myself even more wretched than before. And I knew that everything I had loved in life’s pleasures, everything that lived within me as self-love, was connected to the being who had appeared to me as Death and as the archangel, who claimed that I loved it and that I was it myself. Now I stand before you, whom I do not know who you are. — And now the archangel appeared again, and then Death as well, and stood between the leper and Jesus of Nazareth, obscuring Jesus of Nazareth from the leper’s view. When the leper saw only the archangel, Jesus vanished, and then Death and the archangel vanished as well. And the leper had to move on and saw, only as he had already gone further, Jesus of Nazareth.
[ 44 ] These were the kinds of events that occurred along the path—as traced in the Akashic Records—that Jesus of Nazareth had taken between his conversation with his mother and his baptism by John in the Jordan.
[ 45 ] We will then see tomorrow how these events—which took place in the encounter with the two Essenes, in the encounter with the despairing man, and in the encounter with the leper—continued to work within the physical form of Jesus of Nazareth, how what he experienced in his interactions with the world—which the Jesus who was as if enraptured barely understood, blended with what he received at John’s baptism in the Jordan.
[ 46 ] To anyone who finds these events I have just described—the events that took place between the conversation with the stepmother or foster mother and the baptism of John—strange or wondrous, I can only say: They may seem strange; they truly present themselves as such when investigated in the Akashic Records. They represent events that are, however, as unique in their kind as they must be, since they are the preparation for an event that could only have taken place once—the event we call the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who refuses to accept the idea that something very special took place at that time within the course of human development will find the entire course of human development difficult to understand.