The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] These lectures are intended to be structured in such a way that individual themes are introduced, and then the necessary context is provided to help listeners understand them. Thus, I introduced as a theme what I said about the difficulty of understanding the Christ-Jesus Being, then the theme of the symptomatic manifestation of one aspect of human soul life in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch as described in the prophecies of the Sibyls, and finally, at the conclusion of the previous lecture, I introduced the theme of Paul and the olive tree. I will return to these central themes. But we must, so to speak, approach these leitmotifs in circles, placing them at the center of these circles. It will then become clear what is actually meant by these motifs. Today I would like to speak to you a little about the Christ-being as such. We will then see why this Christ-Jesus-being is reflected in a particular way in Paul.

[ 2 ] We know from earlier lectures that the Christ Being can be understood if we trace the evolution of our solar system back to the ancient solar existence. And on various occasions, in lecture series that have now been published, attention has been drawn to the fact that we are dealing with a high spiritual being—let us call it that for now—in the Christ Being, and that the ancient Sun era was particularly important for the development of this high spiritual being. I do not wish to dwell on this further now. Let us simply regard the Christ Being as a high spiritual being. However, to understand human development on Earth, we need something else, and we have indeed seen how necessary this is, because the concepts and ideas that sought to understand this Christ Jesus Being in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch prove powerless in the face of a certain fact. This question arose again and again, especially in the first centuries, among the Gnostics, the Apostolic Fathers, and the figures who, in one form or another, provided the impetus for the founding of Christianity: What is the relationship between the Christ-being and the being of Jesus?

[ 3 ] We already know that we must distinguish between two Jesus children as they grow up. We need not concern ourselves further with one of these Jesus children in this context, for he is easily understood from our anthroposophical perspective. I am referring to the Jesus in whom the I of Zarathustra lived. We are dealing here with a human being who had already attained a high degree of development in the second post-Atlantean epoch and who, at that time, founded the spiritual movement of Zarathustra and then lived on, subsequently incarnating again in the Solomonic Jesus-child and undergoing in him, up to the age of twelve, the development that such a high I could attain in this era of human incarnation. We further know that this Zarathustra I passed over into the body of the other Jesus child, whose being shines through somewhat in the Gospel of Luke, the so-called Nathanic Jesus child.

[ 4 ] We need to consider this Nathanic Jesus-child a little more closely. I have already pointed out that, strictly speaking, this Jesus-child is not a human being in the same sense as other human beings. We are dealing with a being about whom we cannot say that he was previously incarnated as a human being in this or that individual on Earth. We have always emphasized that, as it were, something has remained behind from the soul-nature that came to Earth from the spiritual worlds to then live itself out in the individual human personalities on Earth, and that this remnant appears in the Nathanic Jesus-child. So that we cannot say of this Nathanic Jesus child that there lives within him an “I” such as in other human beings, which has developed in a certain way through previous incarnations. We must also acknowledge for this Nathanic Jesus child—as is already evident from my exposition in *The Secret Science*—that he did not previously walk the Earth as a human being. The only question now is: Was this being, whom we shall simply call Jesus of Nazareth, previously connected in any way with the development of the Earth? For it is not only those beings and forces that incarnate themselves on Earth, so to speak, that are connected with the Earth’s development, but also spiritual beings and forces belonging to the higher hierarchies. If something remained behind, so to speak, in the substance that then distributed itself among the individual human souls and was then, in a sense, born as the Nathanic Jesus child, this does not mean that this being had not previously been in some relationship to Earth’s development. It simply had not come into contact with the development of the Earth and humanity in such a way that it had previously walked the Earth as a human being. How are we to conceive of this being in relation to the development of the Earth? When we consider the development of this Nathanic Jesus, we must therefore not seek it within what physical earthly development can offer us, but we must seek it in the spiritual realms, in that which was not previously earthly. And here the following emerges for the observation of which I have often spoken, for clairvoyant observation:

[ 5 ] Let us recall what is described in *The Secret Science*: how, beginning in the Lemurian epoch, with the exception of the one primary pair of humanity, souls gradually descended from other planets and, throughout the Atlantean epoch, incarnated in human bodies. We must therefore conceive of the Earth’s evolution in such a way that souls migrate from the Earth’s cosmic surroundings and, at various points in time, begin their renewed earthly evolution, so to speak. We know, after all, that before the Lemurian epoch, the souls had, so to speak, withdrawn to the planets. But we also know that this earthly development of the Earth, into which human souls were to enter, was exposed to the temptations of Lucifer and later of Ahriman. Thus, human souls were led to enter bodies within which, in the course of Earth’s development, they were exposed to the temptations of these two spiritual beings. If nothing more than this had occurred—that human souls had come down again from their planetary existence into the development of the Earth and had then been exposed to the Luciferic-Ahrimanic influences—then something would have happened to these human beings on Earth, as they pass through their incarnations, which I have not yet indicated in *The Secret Science*. However, one cannot say everything publicly at the present time. For these human beings, as they came down from the planets and had to enter physical bodies, would initially have been exposed to a certain danger regarding the development of the senses. For we must not form a mental image of it as being so simple: that these human souls would have come down from their planetary abodes to Earth, taken up residence in human bodies, and that everything would then have proceeded smoothly. Because the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles reigned within them, these human bodies were not constituted in such a way that the human beings could have undergone the development that they subsequently did in fact undergo. Had these souls simply entered in such a way that they would have used the powers these human bodies offered them in terms of the senses, these human souls would have had to use their senses in a peculiar way, in a way that would actually have been impossible for human beings.

[ 6 ] I will explain this as follows. When souls enter human bodies, for example, the eye would not only have been so impressed by a color, so affected by it, that it would have perceived it as it later saw that color, but on the one hand the eye would have been so impressed that it would have felt blissful, permeated by a violent sensation of pleasure; the eye would have literally glowed with pleasure at one color, while at another it would have been permeated by intense antipathy toward that color, and would have been painfully affected. Thus, due to what was present through the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences, bodies were not possible whose senses could have served as proper abodes for the souls that had now descended from the planets. Tormented by the antipathy and sympathy of their senses, human beings would have been; one would have had to go through the world in such a way that one would have been continually enraptured by sympathy or tormented by antipathy, depending on whether one saw this or that color; one would have been enraptured or repelled with terrible pain. Such was the nature of the entire evolution; such was the way the cosmic forces acted upon the Earth, particularly from the Sun, that the senses would have developed in this manner. Any contemplation of the world in wisdom, in a certain serene wisdom, would have been impossible. A change had to take place in the cosmic forces flowing in from the Earth’s cosmic environment and building up and shaping the senses of human bodies. Something had to happen in the spiritual world so that the forces would not enter in such a way that these senses would have become mere organs of antipathy and sympathy, for that is what they would have become under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman. For this reason, the following occurred:

[ 7 ] That being of whom we just said that it had not initially chosen the path down from the planets to Earth, but had remained behind—that being who later appeared as the boy Jesus of Nazareth, and who thus remained in the spiritual worlds for a time in ancient times—that being decided—if we may use the expression— of course, all these expressions are taken from human language and do not fully convey what is meant—so it decided at that time, when it was still in the world of the higher hierarchies, to undergo a development that would enable it to be permeated by the Christ-being in the spiritual world for a time. We are therefore dealing not with a human being, but with a superhuman being — if we may put it that way — who lived in the spiritual world, who, so to speak, heard the anguish of the human mind crying out for help to the spiritual worlds, and who, through what she felt there in response to this cry for help and anguish from humanity, made herself capable of being permeated by the Christ-being.

[ 8 ] As a result, in the spiritual worlds, the being who later became the boy Jesus of Nazareth was, as it were, spiritualized by the Christ Being and transformed the cosmic forces flowing in to build the senses in such a way that these senses evolved from mere organs of sympathy and antipathy into the organs that humanity could then use. Thus did humanity come to be able to look upon all the nuances of sensory perception with wisdom. The cosmic forces that build up the senses would have approached humanity in a completely different way had this event—which lies far in the past, still belonging to the Lemurian epoch—not taken place in the spiritual worlds. It was the case that the being who later appeared as the Nathanic Jesus-child was at that time still dwelling—if I may use this expression—on the Sun, and that through the cry of anguish just mentioned—if I may again use the expression—he experienced within himself something that made it possible for him to be permeated by the Sun Spirit itself, so permeated that, as it were, the influence of the Sun was mitigated in such a way that the human sense organs, which are essentially the result of this solar influence, did not become mere organs of sympathy and antipathy.

[ 9 ] With this, my dear friends, we are truly touching upon a significant cosmic mystery that must help us understand much of what happened later. Now, in a sense, order and harmony—a wise ordering of things—could enter the world of the human senses, and evolution could continue for a time. In a certain sense, it was the worst influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, cast down from the higher worlds and reflected in the human senses.

[ 10 ] Later came a time—which now falls within the era of Atlantis—when it became clear that this human physicality could not, in turn, serve as a suitable instrument if development were to continue accordingly. That which had, so to speak, developed in a useful way for a while—the human life organs and their fundamental forces, the etheric body—had fallen into disarray. For the cosmic forces acting in from the Earth’s surroundings—forces whose task it is to bring order specifically into these human life organs, into the respiratory organs, the circulatory organs, and so on—these forces developed under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in such a way that the life organs would not have become usable for human beings on Earth. They would have taken on a very peculiar form. For the forces that are responsible for sustaining these life organs do not emanate directly from the Sun, but from what were once called the seven planets. The planetary forces acted upon human beings from the cosmos. And it was necessary that these cosmic forces, which determine the human life organs, should now also be tempered. Had development continued as these cosmic forces could have arranged it under the influence of Ahriman and Lucifer, it would have come to pass that in these life organs, the human being would have possessed either only organs of greed or organs of revulsion. For example, a human being would not merely have been able to eat; rather, in the case of one food, he would have been unable to control himself from greedily pouncing upon it, while another food would have repelled him with terrible revulsion. All these are things that reveal themselves to us as a mystery of the world—initially as a cosmic mystery—when we attempt to penetrate the mysteries of the world through clairvoyance.

[ 11 ] Once again, something had to happen in the spiritual worlds themselves to prevent this devastating effect from befalling humanity. And lo and behold, the very same being who later appeared in the boy Jesus of Nazareth—the one who, as we have just explained, had dwelt on the Sun in earlier times and had been spiritualized there by the Christ Being, by the High Sun Spirit—this being now journeyed from planet to planet, deeply moved in her innermost being by the impossibility of allowing human development to continue in this way. And what it experienced there had such a powerful effect on it—as it successively incarnated on the various planets—that at a certain point during the Atlantean era, the Christ Spirit once again permeated it. And through what now came about through the permeation of this very same being with the Christ Spirit, the possibility arose that the life organs of human beings might be imbued with moderation. Just as the sense organs had previously received serene wisdom, so now the life organs received moderation, so that when one breathes in a place, one no longer needs to greedily gulp the air or be repelled by disgust from the other space, but can, as it were, face the world with moderate organs. This was the work of a spiritualization of this Nathanic Jesus-child, we might say, in the spiritual worlds with the Christ Spirit, with the High Sun Spirit.

[ 12 ] Then, as human development progressed, a third factor came into play. A third disorder would have arisen in the course of human development if souls had simply continued to inhabit whatever bodies had become possible on Earth. We can say that, up to that time, the physical aspect was essentially ordered. Through the two Christ deeds in the supersensible worlds, the human sensory organs were arranged in such a way that human beings could use the body appropriately on Earth. The life organs were also arranged in such a way that human beings could use the body appropriately. But the soul organs were not arranged. Humanity would have fallen into disorder with its soul organs if nothing else had happened. And by that I mean specifically that thinking, feeling, and willing would have fallen into disorder, so that willing would have constantly disrupted thinking, feeling would have disrupted willing, and so on. Human beings would, so to speak, have been condemned to a perpetual chaotic use of their soul organs—thinking, feeling, and willing. They would either have become raving mad through an excess of willing, or dazed through a restrained feeling, or people with fleeting ideas through an overdeveloped thinking, and so on. This was the third great danger to which humanity was, in a certain sense, exposed on Earth. Now, what orders these three soul forces—thinking, feeling, and willing—is also ordered from the cosmos, from the Earth’s environment; for the Earth itself is essentially the stage for the ordering of the I. The corresponding interplay of the three soul forces—thinking, feeling, and willing—must be ordered, but now not by all the planets, but only by the Sun, Moon, and Earth, so that through the corresponding interplay of the Sun, Moon, and Earth, when this is harmonious, human beings are also predisposed to a harmonious interplay of their thinking, feeling, and willing.

[ 13 ] A remedy for these forces also had to be found from within the spiritual world. And now the soul of that being who later became the Nathanic Jesus assumed such a cosmic soul form that his life was, so to speak, neither on Earth nor on the Moon nor on the Sun, but rather such that, as it were circling the Earth, it felt dependent on the influences of the Sun, Moon, and Earth all at once. The Earth’s influences came up to him from below, the Moon’s and Sun’s influences came down from above. Clairvoyant consciousness actually sees this being, if I may say so, in the prime of his development in the same sphere in which the Moon orbits the Earth. So I cannot say exactly: the influence of the moon came from above; rather, it actually came from the place where he himself was, this pre-earthly Nathanic Jesus. That, in turn, cried out to him—what should have become of the thinking, feeling, and willing of the human soul—and he sought within himself to fully feel through this tragedy of human development. Through this, however, he in turn called down upon himself the high Sun Spirit, who now, animating him for the third time, descended upon him. So that we have, at a cosmic height, extraterrestrially, a third permeation of this Nathanic Jesus boy by the high Sun Spirit, whom we designate as the Christ.

[ 14 ] Now I will describe to you what happened through this third permeation—as I would like to call it again—in a somewhat different way than I described the other two permeations. What took place there, as it were, in three successive stages of—we might say—spiritual, or for my part, heavenly development, was then reflected in the various worldviews of the post-Atlantean peoples. All of this continued to have an effect; the effects that had arisen from the fact that, once upon a time in the ancient, still Lemuric era, the Christ-being had permeated that being who became the Nathanic Jesus-child had remained; the effects had remained, so to speak, in the solar activity. And the initiation of Zarathustra consisted in his perceiving the solar activity as imbued with these effects. This gave rise to the teaching of Zarathustra, which, as it were, projected into his soul and revealed what had happened in ancient times.

[ 15 ] The third post-Atlantean cultural epoch, which we refer to as the Egyptian-Chaldean, arose in part because the effects of the Sun Spirit’s permeation and animation of the being who later became the Nathanic Jesus—as it made its circuit through the planets—were still being experienced inwardly by the souls, reflecting within them. This gave rise to that science of planetary influences which we find in Chaldean astrology, of which people today have only a few concepts left. In the third post-Atlantean cultural epoch, that is, among the Egyptian-Chaldean peoples, that star service developed which is, of course, known externally, exoterically. It arose because what had been tempered by the planetary forces continued to radiate inward, exerting its influence in later times.

[ 16 ] And even later, during the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, the Greeks perceived this reflection of the planetary spirits, which had arisen, as it were, because the being who, permeated by Christ, journeyed through the planets, became one or the other on each planet: On Jupiter, it became the one whom the Greeks later called Zeus; on Mars, it became the one whom they later called Ares; on Mercury, it became the one whom the Greeks called Hermes. The Greek planetary gods subsequently reflected what Christ Jesus had accomplished in the super-earthly worlds out of the planetary beings who were permeated by the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles. When the Greeks looked up at their heavenly realm of gods, they saw there the shadows and reflections of the Christ Jesus’ activity on the individual planets, alongside much else that I have described previously.

[ 17 ] Thirdly, there was the reflection, the shadow of what the Jesus-entity had experienced in connection with the sun, moon, and earth while still a super-earthly entity in earlier times, during the later period of Atlantis. To characterize this, we might say: The Christ “became spiritual” in an angelic being. When we say of Christ that he incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth, we now speak of this event unfolding in the spiritual worlds: the Christ “became spiritual” in an angelic being that acts in such a way that thinking, feeling, and willing proceed in order. This was an important event, for it was, after all, still a recent event in the development of humanity: it brought order to the soul development of humanity. While the two earlier Christ events had more to do with bringing order to the physical and life-related condition of humanity on Earth, what then had to happen in the super-earthly worlds for this third event?

[ 18 ] We will recognize this third fact when we examine it—to make it easier for you to create a mental image of it—as it is reflected in Greek mythology. For just as the planetary spirits projected themselves into Greek mythology as Zeus, Ares, Hermes, Venus, Aphrodite, Cronus, and so on, so too was the third cosmic event reflected not only in Greek mythology but in the mythologies of the most diverse peoples. We can understand how it was reflected if we, so to speak, allow ourselves to compare what was reflected with the mirror image: what happened out there in the cosmos with what then happened in Greece as an aftereffect. Up there in the cosmos, what happened there? Well, something had to be driven out that would have stirred up chaos in the human soul; that had to be overcome. The angelic being permeated by Christ had to perform the deed of driving out of the human soul, of overcoming that which must be driven out of this human soul, so that harmony and order might exist in thinking, feeling, and willing. What would have brought about chaos and disorder within the human soul had to be overcome; it had to be driven out. And so the image appears to us—let us vividly picture it before the eye of our soul—the image of an angelic being, that being who is still in the spiritual worlds, who will later become the child Jesus, the Nathanic child Jesus: This appears to us imbued with the Christ-being, thereby capable of special deeds, capable of expelling from thinking, feeling, and willing that which rages within him as the dragon and would have plunged him into chaos. The memory of this prevails in all the images that have established themselves in human cultures as Saint George defeating the dragon. Saint George and the dragon reflect that superhuman event in which Christ permeated Jesus and enabled him to expel the dragon from the nature of the human soul. It was this one significant deed that had become possible only through the help of Christ in Jesus, in that angelic being of that time. For it actually had to unite with the dragon nature of this angelic being, had to take on a dragon form, as it were, in order to keep the dragon away from the human soul; it had to work within the dragon so that the dragon was ennobled, so that the dragon was brought out of chaos into a kind of harmony. The education, the taming of the dragon—that is the further task of this being. And so it came to pass that, although the dragon was active, because the influence emanating from the being described was poured into it, this dragon became the bearer of many revelations that have made their mark in the earthly cultures of the entire post-Atlantean development. Instead of the chaos of the dragon manifesting in frenzied or deluded human beings, the primordial wisdom of the post-Atlantean era has emerged. Christ Jesus, as it were, used the dragon’s blood to permeate human blood with its help, so that humanity might become the bearer of divine wisdom. This significant aspect is reflected in Greek mythology, appearing exoterically as early as the ninth century B.C.

[ 19 ] It is curious how, in the Greek conception, one divine figure emerges from among the other divine figures. We know, of course, that the Greeks worshipped various gods. These gods were the shadows, the projections of the beings that had come into being during the journey of the later Nathanic Jesus, with the Christ within him, through the planets. This is how they saw it: when they looked up into the cosmic expanses, when they gazed through the light-ether, they rightly attributed the origin to Jupiter—not the outer one, but the truly spiritual, inner one—and spoke of Zeus. Thus they spoke of Pallas Athena, of Artemis, and of the various planetary gods, who were the shadows of what we have spoken of. But from these conceptions of the various divine figures, one emerged: the figure of Apollo. In a peculiar way, the figure of Apollo emerged. What did the Greeks see in their Apollo?

[ 20 ] We come to know him when we look toward Mount Parnassus and the Castalian Spring. To the west of Mount Parnassus, a chasm opened up; the Greeks built a temple over it. Why? Previously, vapors had risen from the chasm which, when the air currents were right, actually wound their way around the mountain like serpentine coils, like a dragon. And the Greeks had a mental image of Apollo shooting his arrows at the dragon, which rises as violent vapors from the chasm. There St. George, sending his arrows against the dragon, meets us in the Greek Apollo, in an earthly shadow. And when he had vanquished the dragon Python, a temple is erected, and instead of the Python we see how the vapors enter the soul of the Pythia and how the Greeks have a mental image of Apollo now living within these wild dragon vapors, prophesying to them through the oracles from the mouth of the Pythia. And the Greeks, this self-assured people, descend the steps upon which they have prepared themselves spiritually, and receive what Apollo has to say through the Pythia, who is permeated by the dragon’s vapors. That is to say, Apollo lives in the dragon’s blood and imbues people with wisdom, which they draw from the Castalian Spring. And the place becomes a gathering site for the holiest games and festivals.

[ 21 ] And why is Apollo able to do this? What is Apollo? He accomplishes what he draws up from the dragon’s blood as wisdom only from spring to autumn. As autumn approaches, he journeys to his ancient homeland, to the north, to the Hyperborean lands. Festivals are celebrated as farewells because Apollo departs. In spring he is welcomed back when he comes from the north. Deep wisdom reigns in this journey of Apollo toward the north. The physical sun moves southward; in the spiritual realm, it is always the opposite. This suggests that Apollo is connected to the sun. Apollo is the angelic being of whom we have spoken: a shadow, a projection into the Greek mind of the angelic being who actually worked at the end of the Atlantean era, who was animated by the Christ. The projection, the shadow of the angel imbued with the Christ into the Greek mind, is Apollo, who speaks wisdom to the Greeks through the mouth of the Pythia. And what was all contained in this wisdom of Apollo for the Greeks! In a sense, everything that determined them in the most important matters to take this or that course of action. Time and again, in difficult matters of life, spiritually well-prepared, people went to Apollo and received prophecies through the mouth of the Pythia, who was inspired by the vapors in which Apollo lived. And Asclepius, the healer, is the son of Apollo for the Greeks. The god of healing is Apollo: “Healer.” The attenuation of that angel in whom Christ once was is a healer on earth or a healer for the earth. For Apollo was never a physically embodied figure, but worked through the elements of the earth.

[ 22 ] And the god of the Muses, above all the god of song and musical art, is Apollo. Why is he this? Because through what reigns in song and in the playing of strings, he brings order to the otherwise chaotic interplay of thinking, feeling, and willing. We must always bear in mind that in Apollo this is a projection of what happened at the end of the Atlantean epoch. At that time, something from spiritual heights was indeed still working into the human soul, something that resounded in a faint echo in the musical arts that the Greeks cultivated under the protection of the god Apollo. The Greeks were aware that their musical art was, as it were, the earthly reflection of that ancient art which, in heavenly heights, was cultivated by the angelic being—permeated by Christ—to harmonize thinking, feeling, and willing. They did not express it in these terms; only within their mysteries was it known what this entailed. In the Apollonian mysteries of the Greeks, it was said: A high divine being had once permeated a being from the hierarchy of the Angeloi. This brought harmony to thinking, feeling, and willing, and a reflection of this is the art of the Muses, especially Apollonian art—that art, for example, of music, which pours forth in the sound of strings. That which manifested itself through whistling or wind instruments, for example, was not regarded as Apollonian. That which appeals less to the elements than wind instruments, which, so to speak, requires most of all human skill, in short, that which resounds in the strings of Apollo—to this the Greeks attributed that musical effect which brings the soul into harmony. And of people who have no inclination, no sufficient appreciation for this musical art of Apollo, the Greeks said—in full awareness of all that we have discussed—that they indeed display a physical sign on their outer bodies of their dullness toward the Apollonian principle; they show on their physical bodies, as it were, how they have remained atavistically at an earlier stage. It is remarkable that when a man was born with particularly elongated ears—it was King Midas—the Greeks said: He was born with donkey ears because, before he came into the world, he did not properly surrender himself to the influences that once came into the world through that angelic being who was permeated by Christ. That is why, they said, he had donkey ears, and this caused him to prefer wind instruments to stringed instruments. And when a child was once born who, so to speak, had no skin—who was born without skin—he has become known in mythology under the name of the flayed Marsyas—they said: This is because before his birth he did not heed what emanated from the angelic being. For this is how it appears to occult observation. According to occult observation, Marsyas was not flayed while still alive, but was born that way. What he had done, he had done before his birth.

[ 23 ] Many cities founded by the Greeks as colonies bear the name Apollonia, because they had sought the Pythia’s advice on whether to establish a colony in one place or another. The Greeks valued their civic freedom; therefore, they did not form a single state, but rather the ideal unity granted to them by their god Apollo, for whom they later established a kind of confederation.

[ 24 ] We see how the Greeks worshipped, in the god they called Apollo, the being we have just spoken of. And we might say: In that which truly corresponds to Apollo at the end of the Atlantean epoch, the Christ-being was “ensouled.” And if we ask: What is Apollo really? Not his shadow image, which the Greeks then worshipped, but what is Apollo actually? As a supermundane being, he is the being who poured in the healing forces for the soul from higher worlds, paralyzing the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. This also brought about in the human body such a cooperation of brain, breath, lungs with larynx, and heart as was expressed in the projection of this cooperation in singing. For the proper cooperation of brain, breathing, speech organs, and heart is the physical expression of the proper cooperation of thinking, feeling, and willing. The healer, the superhuman healer, is Apollo. We have seen his three stages of development, and the healer who underlies Apollo is born on earth, and people call him Jesus, which translated into our language means “the one who heals through God.” It is the Nathanic Jesus child, the one who heals through God, Jehoschua Jesus.

[ 25 ] Now, on its fourth stage, it is ripening to be permeated by the Christ Being within its I. This occurs through the Mystery of Golgotha. For those human souls who were born before the Mystery of Golgotha would not, in the course of time, have found bodies on Earth in which they could have incarnated in such a way that the ego-force would have been expressed in the appropriate manner, had the Mystery of Golgotha not taken place, had not a being—the very same being we have traced through cosmic ages —had not been permeated by the Christ-being. It had brought the I to its highest development in Zarathustra. The souls that had achieved I-development would never again have been able to find earthly bodies suitable for true development had the Mystery of Golgotha not taken place.

[ 26 ] Now we have the four stages of harmonization: the harmonization of the sensory life, that of the vital organs, that of thinking, feeling, and willing, and the harmonization within the “I”—the latter through the Mystery of Golgotha. Now, my dear friends, you have the relationship between the being who was born as the Nathanic Jesus child and the Christ Being. You have the way in which this relationship was prepared. Through what is now being revealed in true anthroposophy, it is possible for us to grasp this kind of interaction, this belonging together of the Christ Being with the human being of the Nathanic Jesus. And a healthy spiritual life in the future will depend on this: that it will become possible for more and more people to grasp what the life of thought and ideas of the age in which the Mystery of Golgotha took place proved incapable of understanding.