The Rudolf Steiner Archive

9. Progress in the Knowledge of Christ: The Fifth Gospel

[ 1 ] In today’s discussion, I would first like to speak about what we can now know within occult research regarding the Christ Being, and then follow that with a discussion of the progress we have made in our understanding of the Christ since the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 2 ] Within our spiritual movement, the great significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the entire development of the Earth has been repeatedly emphasized. By further exploring this significance of the Mystery of Golgotha within occult research, we were able to identify three preliminary stages of the Mystery of Golgotha that took place within Earth’s evolution and in connection with it. Three preliminary stages precede the Mystery of Golgotha, preparing the way for it, but they do not take place on the physical plane; rather, they unfold in the higher worlds.

[ 3 ] The first of these events occurred during the Lemurian period of Earth's evolution. The other two events, the second and the third, occurred during the Atlantean period of Earth’s development. And the fourth is the Mystery of Golgotha, which took place on the physical plane during the post-Atlantean era, at the beginning of our calendar.

[ 4 ] During the Lemurian epoch, the same Being we know as the Christ Being united with another Being from the higher worlds—a Being who did not incarnate on the physical plane but belonged to the world of the higher hierarchies. And just as we speak, in relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, of Christ entering the body of Jesus of Nazareth, so we can speak, in relation to the ancient Lemurian era, of Christ entering an archangelic being of the higher worlds. One could say that a similar event, translated into the spiritual realm, took place during the Lemurian evolution, just as the baptism of John in the Jordan later took place on the physical plane. We thus encounter the Christ-being in that ancient time within the soul-body of an archangel. And through this sacrifice of the Christ-being—the entry into a body, into the soul-body of an archangel—a very specific effect is radiated from the spiritual worlds into the development of the Earth.

[ 5 ] To understand the significance of this event, we must speak of a danger that threatened the entire course of human development during the Lemurian epoch due to the Luciferic forces. If humanity had not averted this danger, everything we call the human capacity for sensory perception would have been thrown into disarray. Under the influence of Lucifer, the sensory faculties would not have been able to develop as they did; instead, they would have become much more sensitive and much more easily aroused by the external world. For example, we would then have had to go through the world like this: If we had seen a blue color, it would have seemed to suck at our eyes, and we would have felt something like a draining force; and if we had seen a red color, we would have felt something like a stinging in the eyes. We need only create a mental image of what we humans would have become if, at every turn in life, we had been tossed back and forth by our sensory perceptions in a constant stream of stimulating impressions. This danger was averted by the fact that Christ—I must now say—did not incarnate, but rather infused a Archangelic being with his spirit, and the forces that were thereby able to radiate from the spiritual worlds poured into human evolution, and the sensory powers were harmonized, so that the danger just discussed was averted from humanity and they attained the necessary balance. So today, when we consider the moderation with which our sensory perceptions function, we can look back to the ancient Lemurian era and say: It was then that Christ sacrificed himself, became the soul of an archangelic being, and took from us the danger of hypersensitivity in our sensory system.

[ 6 ] The second danger to human evolution—this time posed jointly by Ahriman and Lucifer—arose during the early period of Atlantean development. During this time, an abnormal development threatened the life forces. The life forces were to develop in such a way that, for example, if a human felt hunger and had food before them, they would have pounced on the food with animalistic greed. And on the other hand, for example, if they had had any food before them that was not beneficial to them, they would have felt terrible revulsion and fled from the food. The hypersensitivity of the life forces threatened humanity at that time. Christ once again incarnated in an archangelic being of the higher hierarchies, and through this sacrifice of Christ, the danger just described was averted from humanity, and the life forces were harmonized in such a way that we can now use them with moderation and balance.

[ 7 ] The third danger threatened human development toward the end of the Atlantean epoch. Under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, the three soul forces—thinking, feeling, and willing—were to be thrown into disorder, so that they would have acted in a disorderly, confused, and chaotic manner had this danger not been averted.

[ 8 ] If we want to understand what this matter is really all about, we must be clear that the Earth is not merely what geologists mean by a mineral body, but that the Earth is an entire organism. What rises from the depths of the Earth, what rises as misty vapors from the depths of the Earth, is not merely physical vapor, but also the embodiment of passions that can unite with the passions and drives of human beings and are permeated by Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces. At the specified time, these would have caused chaos in human thinking, feeling, and willing. And had this danger not been averted, the entire human race would have fallen into a kind of delirium due to the chaos in thinking, feeling, and willing. The human race would have developed into a state of madness that would have become the normal condition of the Earth. Then, for the third time, the Christ Being incarnated in an archangelic being and averted this danger through the rays that could once again be directed toward human development through the sacrifice just described. The effect of this third incarnation of the Christ Being is the harmonization of thinking, feeling, and willing in the nature of the human soul.

[ 9 ] The Greeks, who perceived in their mythology something like afterimages of the events that took place during the Atlantean era, also expressed this very supernatural fact in their mythology. And the image, the afterimage, through which the Greeks formed a mental image of the third incarnation of Christ in an archangel-like being, is Apollo, the sun god. Apollo, as the protector of the Pythia’s utterances, appears as the being who harmonizes the dragon rising from the earth in the form of vapors. If, without Apollo’s harmonizing influence, this vapor were to flow into the Pythia’s passion, then thinking, feeling, and willing would manifest as madness. Through the infusion of Apollo’s powers, what the Pythia has to say sometimes becomes the wisest counsel ever given to the Greeks.

[ 10 ] If one could have asked an initiate of the ancient mysteries for his true opinion on who Apollo is, he would certainly have answered: He is the forerunner of Christ Jesus, who has simply not yet descended to the physical plane.

[ 11 ] Humanity has preserved a wonderful image of this third Christ event in the depiction of Saint George slaying the dragon, or the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon. It is wonderful to be able to observe how this image—St. George defeating the dragon—is in fact an echo of the third supersensible Christ event.

[ 12 ] And the fourth event occurred in the post-Atlantean era, when humanity was once again in danger of becoming disordered in its spiritual development. Now it was the human ego itself that was to become directly disordered.

[ 13 ] The first danger was that the sensory faculties would have become disordered. The second danger was that the life forces would have become disordered. The third danger was that the soul faculties—thinking, feeling, and willing—would have become disordered. The fourth danger was that the forces of the ego would have become disordered.

[ 14 ] The same Being—the Christ Being—who had previously incarnated three times, now incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth during the Mystery of Golgotha in order to avert this fourth danger from humanity through its radiation into the Earth’s aura.

[ 15 ] One can truly see, in the course of human development over the centuries that preceded the Mystery of Golgotha and those that followed it, how the danger existed that would throw the ego and its power into disarray. We see how, with the blossoming of the ego force—which we can observe in Greek philosophy in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, beginning as early as Thales and Heraclitus— we see how, alongside the blossoming of the ego-force through Greek philosophy, something else goes hand in hand; as the forces of human thought blossom in Thales, Heraclitus, in Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, we see, spreading across the entire part of the Earth that was cultivated at that time, appearing here and there, the forces of the so-called Sibyls. These Sibyls, who appear as a parallel phenomenon alongside the emergence of philosophy, represent how chaos is to penetrate the ego forces. We see how, on the one hand, what such Sibyls proclaim can give rise to truth and good prophecy, while on the other hand, misunderstandings and deceptive, disordered ego-forces speak through the Sibyls. How the chaotic-earthly speaks through the Sibyls was later depicted in a marvelous way by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, drawing from tradition. Even in the depiction of their gestures, one can see how the disorder of the ego forces worked through the individual Sibyls, finding expression in the most manifold ways.

[ 16 ] And Michelangelo placed, as a polar counterpart to the forces of the Sibyls, those who sought the ego, who sought to discover the ego within human nature and to make it fruitful for the historical development of humanity: these are the prophets. What appears to us in Michelangelo’s Sibyls and prophets represents the two poles: on the one hand, the tendency of the ego to fall into disorder; on the other, the quest of Jewish prophecy to bring the ego forces into order. There was a ferment in human nature surrounding the actual awakening of the ego that was to take place at that time, and had the danger not been averted, dark prophetic forces and dark Sibylline forces would today be in chaotic disarray within our ego. There could have been no true clarity of the ego in the development of the following centuries. Then the incarnation of the Christ in Jesus of Nazareth fell into this ferment and brought about, for the fourth time, the harmonization of human nature. This could only happen because the Christ-being incarnated in a human being who, in the highest sense, had developed within himself all the capacities then available to humanity.

[ 17 ] Just as modern occult research enables us to shed light on the four stages of the Mystery of Golgotha, so too does it enable us to shed light on the being of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ-being was incarnated through the Mystery of Golgotha, the final stage. On previous occasions, I have been able to point out that two Jesus children were born at the beginning of our era. I have been able to indicate that in the twelfth year of one Jesus child, who descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David, the soul of the other Jesus child, who descended from the Solomonic line, entered him, so that the two Jesus children became one being. If we ask ourselves who this twelve-year-old Jesus of Nazareth was, occult research answers us today: It is the soul of Zarathustra in a very special human being who descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David. — And when we now turn our spiritual gaze to the being of Zarathustra in the Nathanic Jesus, we see how this Jesus of Nazareth continued to develop until his thirtieth year.

[ 18 ] We can distinguish three periods in the development of this Jesus of Nazareth. The first from the age of twelve to eighteen. The second from the age of eighteen to twenty-four. The third from about the age of twenty-four to thirty. The young Jesus of Nazareth lived in the household headed by his biological father and the mother of the Solomonic Jesus-child. The other two had died in the meantime. The young Jesus of Nazareth was outwardly introduced to his father’s trade, a kind of carpentry or joinery. Yet, strangely enough, he developed with infinite perfection of spiritual life within his soul. We must note that, fundamentally speaking, no one in his family circle understood the profoundly significant development of the young Jesus of Nazareth. He was already alone with it as a boy from the age of twelve to eighteen; completely alone with it. This inner development, which took place in the solitude of the soul, was remarkable in that Jesus of Nazareth was able to draw up from the depths of his soul all that had come to the Jewish people in the course of time in the form of great revelations. After all, during the time Jesus of Nazareth lived, the Israelite people had scarcely anything left but written traditions of what the ancient prophets had once received in direct revelations from the spiritual worlds. People knew from the Scriptures what the ancients had received as revelation, but they no longer had any way of reaching up to that revelation itself, which had once come to the ancient prophets through that voice known as the Great Bath-Kol. As if in a process of regressive development, Jesus of Nazareth relived within himself all that the Jewish people had gone through, and he worked his way upward to the point where his soul sensed: The Great Bath-Kol is speaking to me again. Directly from the spiritual world I hear the voice that the prophets once received. And as is the case with such inner development, so it was with Jesus of Nazareth: this inner development was accompanied by the deepest spiritual pain and suffering. The highest insights are not attained without pain and suffering. In particular, there was one thing that settled like a terrible pain in the soul of the seventeen- or eighteen-year-old Jesus of Nazareth when he said to himself: Once the great Bath-Kol spoke the most wondrous revelations to the Jewish people. Today the Jewish people are here, but if the great Bath-Kol were to speak to them today, there would be no one there to hear it. They understand the Scriptures, but they no longer understand the living Word. — He was lonely within himself; an immense sadness came over his soul, over what had become of his people in the downward course of human development. Then came the time when Jesus of Nazareth was to be sent out into the world. He wandered about, practicing his craft here and there, in the most diverse regions, both in Palestine and outside Palestine, in pagan lands. These wanderings were remarkable, especially in the impression they made on the people to whom Jesus of Nazareth came. What the pain had wrought in his soul had been transformed into something like love, which one could feel radiating from him immediately in his presence. When, in the evening after he had finished his work, he was with the people he visited, sitting together with them, they felt how an atmosphere of love passed over to them through his words, but also through his mere presence. The love-filled words he could speak to them made the deepest impression on the people, and when he had gone away to work elsewhere, something like the most vivid memory of him remained with the people he had left behind. It often happened that Jesus of Nazareth had already been gone for three or four weeks, yet the people he had left three or four weeks earlier shared a common vision that he was entering their midst again and speaking to them—the vision spoke to them. So deep was the impression that, in essence, he had remained with them, this Jesus of Nazareth. Thus did the essence of who Jesus of Nazareth was imprint itself upon hundreds and hundreds of souls as he wandered about during his eighteenth to twenty-fourth years.

[ 19 ] During these travels, Jesus of Nazareth also came to pagan regions. One day he came upon a pagan town where the people were in a state of neglect. The town had been abandoned by its priests. There was a place of sacrifice there, but it lay desolate. The priests had fled because a terrible disease had broken out among the people of the town. Such places of sacrifice and the rituals performed at them were derived from the Mysteries. What had been revealed in the Mysteries was carried over into the ceremonial acts at these places of sacrifice. To understand such a thing, one must pay a little attention to the significance of ceremonial sacrifice. Through the manner in which the sacrificial acts are performed, and through the prayers that permeate these acts, spiritual forces do indeed flow down, so to speak, onto the altars. But when Jesus of Nazareth came to the place of worship in the aforementioned location, he no longer found the good forces that had once flowed down upon the altars during the ancient sacrifices. He found the places of worship, abandoned by their priests, populated by demonic forces that were gathered around the altar. Even the neglected, ailing, and downtrodden people of this pagan place were deeply moved when they noticed Jesus of Nazareth approaching—a man they did not know, yet who radiated an atmosphere of love. At first, they believed that one of their old priests, who had abandoned them, had returned and intended to offer their pagan sacrifices. Jesus of Nazareth, of course, did not intend to offer the pagan sacrifice, but he stepped among the people. Then he was seized by the power of the demons that were around the altar, and he fell down as if dead. When the people saw this, they fled, and as he was being overcome, Jesus of Nazareth still saw how the people were being pursued by the demonic forces. Then he lost his ordinary consciousness and was carried away into spiritual worlds. And now he could perceive what had once been revealed to the ancient mystery priests in purity and truth; he could perceive the ancient pagan revelations, just as he had perceived the Jewish revelations in the voice of the great Bath-Kol. And now he could hear the ancient pagan revelation, which can be rendered in today’s language roughly 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 name
You Fathers in Heaven.

[ 20 ] And Jesus of Nazareth knew, in his altered state of consciousness, that this revelation had passed through the ancient sacred teachings of the mysteries. He awoke and retained the memory of what had once been the ancient sacred teachings of the pagan religions. He then adapted what he had received in this revelation for the further progress of humanity, and it became the “Lord’s Prayer.”

[ 21 ] What one learns about the higher worlds is not learned merely through teachings, but rather through experiences one has in those higher worlds. One then comes to understand the full significance of such a revelation in a far deeper way than one could ever do through teachings or theories. A new, great sorrow settled in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. He saw before him, in a particularly clear instance, the utter misery into which the pagan revelations had descended, and could now contrast it with what they had once been.

[ 22 ] Just as he had said, speaking to the Jewish people: “And even if the voice of the great Bath-Kol were to sound today, there are no longer people who could understand it; one is left alone with it”—so he could now say, with regard to the pagan peoples: “And even if the voices of the ancient pagan mysteries were to resound everywhere once more, there would no longer be people who could understand them.”

[ 23 ] Thus, Jesus of Nazareth was to experience, with the deepest sorrow, the decline of humanity.

[ 24 ] The events just described took place when Jesus of Nazareth was about twenty-four years old. Shortly after this happened, he returned home. It was around the time his father died in Nazareth.

[ 25 ] During the years between his twenty-fourth and thirtieth, now that he was back home in Nazareth, he came into contact with the Essenes, who had one or two colonies in that region. He did not actually become an Essene, but because of his deep inner life, because of the twofold great sorrow that had settled in his soul and been transformed into love, the Essenes accepted him and often spoke with him about their deepest secrets, which they had otherwise shared only with their own kind, with initiates. Only to him did they speak of their deepest secrets. And among the Essenes he came to know people who, at that time, through a special inner development, were striving to ascend once more to that from which humanity had descended. He eagerly absorbed what he could learn from the Essenes about the human development involved in such an ascent. One day, however, as he left the house of the Essenes and passed through the gate, he had a particularly remarkable vision: on either side of the gate he saw two figures, whom he later, through his subsequent experiences, knew to be Lucifer and Ahriman. They fled from the gates of the Essenes out into the rest of the world. And he had now, through what he had undergone in his own inner development, reached a point where he could, so to speak, read in the occult script the significance of this flight of Lucifer and Ahriman from the gates of the Essenes. He now knew: Yes, it is possible even in the present that individual

[ 26 ] People can ascend to spiritual heights through a special spiritual development, but only at the expense of the rest of humanity. For only a select few could undergo the Essene development, and they could do so only because others remained on lower levels. He knew that through their mystical development the Essenes freed themselves from the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, but that Lucifer and Ahriman, precisely because they had to flee from the Essenes’ homes, fled to the other people and took hold of the rest of humanity all the more. And from this occult experience came his third great sorrow, as he could say to himself: Yes, it is possible for individual, specially chosen people to ascend to what was once revealed to humanity, but they can only ascend at the expense of the rest of humanity. — This nearly tore his heart out, for he was full of love for all people. And now, as a result of the third great pain, he could say to himself: Just as in our present time individual people ascend to higher spiritual insights, these must be withheld from the rest of humanity. No matter how high a soul may rise, no matter what it may know, to experience it alongside the Essenes—for that, the other people across the vast earth are far too wretched.

[ 27 ] As Jesus of Nazareth went through these experiences, he came to realize how his stepmother or foster mother was gaining a deeper and deeper understanding of his inner life. This was especially true after his father’s death. And while in earlier years Jesus of Nazareth had been quite alone and lonely within the family, during this time many a conversation developed with his mother in which Jesus of Nazareth could speak of what he was experiencing in his lonely soul. And a great, decisive conversation took place between Jesus of Nazareth and his mother in the thirtieth year of his life. All the insights that had accumulated in his soul since the age of twelve—through hearing the voice of the great Bath-Kol, through the Cosmic Lord’s Prayer, through his experience with the Essenes—all the insights that had been stored in his soul in this way, he spoke of to his mother one day. And he spoke to his mother in such a way that this conversation has a deeply moving effect, even when it is later deciphered from the Akashic Records by occult research. The words did not merely reach his mother as words, but as living forces that, as if on wings, carried the essence of the soul of Jesus of Nazareth into the essence of his mother’s soul. So deeply was Jesus of Nazareth connected to what he had to clothe in his words that his suffering and his insights passed into the words and flowed over into the heart and soul of his mother. And it was as if the mother had been permeated by a new life; rejuvenated, she came alive anew.

[ 28 ] Jesus of Nazareth, however, entered into a completely different state of mind. Through his words, he had poured out that which was so intimately connected with them—his own “I.” The ego of Zarathustra had left the three bodies—the physical, etheric, and astral bodies—of Jesus of Nazareth, and the cosmic forces were now working into the three bodies. Without ego-consciousness, as if in a higher dream state, Jesus of Nazareth was drawn along the path toward John the Baptist: Jesus of Nazareth, who had breathed out his Zarathustra-ego in conversation with his mother.

[ 29 ] Thus he was prepared, after surrendering his Zarathustra-self, to receive the Christ-being as his new self. The Mystery of Golgotha, as the fourth stage of the Christ events of which we have spoken, was thereby prepared. It unfolded during the three years in which the Christ lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha. And it was only at that event, the memory of which we celebrate in the Pentecost event, that the disciples, as if emerging from a different state of consciousness, came to realize what had transpired with the Christ Jesus.

[ 30 ] When we survey what has now been considered regarding the Christ-being as a result of contemporary occult research, can we then say that our hearts and souls would be less shaken by these revelations for our time than by those revelations from an earlier era

[ 31 ] about Jesus and have come to be known as Christ? The occult science of our day truly enables us to know more and to understand more deeply about Christ Jesus than has been known in past centuries. And we may say this: The figure of Christ grows to cosmic stature as we seek to recognize him through the means that modern occultism places at our disposal.

[ 32 ] Let us look back at what was given to an earlier humanity concerning Christ Jesus, for example in the four Gospels. From an occult perspective, we are well aware that those who wrote the Gospels did so under the inspiration of ancient mysteries, drawing upon an atavistic clairvoyance. I have pointed this out in my book *Christianity as a Mystical Fact*. The first to have an impression of the cosmic significance of Christ was Paul; Paul, who could perceive how the power of the Christ Being had poured into the Earth’s aura. What dawned upon Paul regarding a specific aspect of Christ-knowledge can, as we deepen the occultism of our day, dawn upon humanity in further realms of Christ-knowledge. For as Paul’s vision is extended from the Mystery of Golgotha to its three preliminary stages, as it is extended from what in Paul is almost exclusively the perception of Jesus of Nazareth to the life of Christ Jesus, then the Pauline method is, so to speak, spread from a single center across the entire great phenomenon of the life of Christ Jesus. In that we are thus able today, through devoted occult research, to make the Pauline method, as it were, universal for the knowledge of Christ, a real advance has been made in the knowledge of Christ.

[ 33 ] I did not wish to speak in abstract terms about the development of progress in the knowledge of Christ, but rather I wanted to illustrate concretely what knowledge of Christ can be attained in the present day through occult science. Thus, it will have become clear to us from our present-day consideration that Spiritual Science, as we understand it, can be an instrument for an ever-deeper knowledge of Christ. It is to be hoped that, even if humanity were to go so far in rejecting the old religious mental images of Christ due to materialistic influences, modern Spiritual Science will once again give Christ back to humanity. For this Spiritual Science does not speak of Christ from a theoretical standpoint, but in remembrance of Christ’s own words: “I am with you until the end of the age!” — For Christ has poured Himself into the Earth’s aura, in which we ourselves are embedded. He lives within it! And we can commune with him as a spiritual being within the Earth’s aura if we acquire the ability to do so, just as the disciples once lived with Christ Jesus on the physical plane. We need only accustom ourselves to truly perceiving the living presence of Christ in the Earth’s aura and not merely identifying Christianity with a mere teaching, a mere doctrine. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ has been here, all around us. We can find him in the very same world in which we are, in which he is—only not in a physical form, but as a spiritual being.

[ 34 ] And we can observe how he acts as a being, regardless of what people were able to think about him. Have we not seen that in councils and other forums of debate, opinions and teachings about the Christ have gone back and forth, that people were unable to come to terms with their thoughts about the Christ? How many opinions have been held about Christ! But if the further development of the Christ impulse had depended on people’s opinions about it, the state of this further development of the Christ impulse would indeed be dire. This Christ impulse is a living reality in the development of the Earth, and it acts within it as a reality, quite regardless of what people thought about it.

[ 35 ] To put this into perspective, let us consider the date of October 28, 312. At that time, Constantine, the son of Constantius Chlorus, stood at the gates of Rome, which was ruled by Maxentius. Constantine, with his relatively smaller army, approached Rome, where Maxentius commanded a significantly larger army. Maxentius was safe within the walls of Rome. Constantine advanced across the open field. That battle, fought at that time, determined the map of Europe. Anyone who studies history in depth will always have to admit: Back then, it was not the generals’ ideas, nor the rational arguments of men, that determined what happened in the battle, but something entirely different! Maxentius consulted the Sibylline Books and received this answer: If you attack Constantine outside the gates of Rome, you will destroy Rome’s greatest enemy. — A true oracle! And on the night preceding the battle, Maxentius had a dream that drove him to leave the secure position within Rome’s walls and go out to meet Constantine. Constantine, however, with his much smaller army, had a dream that night instructing him to have the symbol of Christ carried before his army and to win under that sign. No rational reasons, no strategic reasons, no knowledge of the art of war had played a role at that time, for it came down to a decisive moment; rather, subconscious forces stood opposed to one another in Maxentius and Constantine. Whatever one may think of Constantine’s merits or demerits, in the victory that Constantine won at that time, the impulse of Christ lived as a real, tangible force that had been working through the subconscious of human beings since the Mystery of Golgotha, quite apart from what people thought of Christ.

[ 36 ] This is just one of many events that could be cited to show how the Christ impulse first entered the subconscious forces of the soul—forces that would otherwise have faded into the realm of the Sibylline—and worked its way upward. And while the superconscious soul forces increasingly urged people to no longer understand the Christ impulse due to the materialistic current, the Christ continues to work within the subconscious soul forces of human beings, just as he worked in Constantine and Maxentius.

[ 37 ] Today, however, we are faced with the necessity of bringing to the surface what has been at work in the subconscious forces of the soul and placing it consciously before the soul. We must consciously recognize the being that has been working in the Earth’s aura and in the souls of human beings since the Mystery of Golgotha, and which has determined the course of Earth’s development and of humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha from within this Earth’s aura,

[ 38 ] By keeping this in mind, we can understand the progress that human understanding has made with regard to Christ, and we can understand our own role in relation to the advances in our understanding of Christ.