The Rudolf Steiner Archive

4. Theosophy and Christianity

[ 1 ] Even today, people often confuse the Theosophical Society with the Buddhist worldview. On several occasions during these monthly meetings, I have remarked that at the Theosophical Congress in Chicago in 1893, the Indian Brahmin G. N. Chakravarti himself stated that Theosophy had brought him something entirely new, or at least a complete renewal of his worldview. He stated at the time that all spiritual worldviews, including that of his people in India, had given way to materialism, and that it was the Theosophical Society that had renewed the spiritual worldview in India. — One can already conclude from this that we did not bring Theosophy from India, just as, on the other hand, if one follows the Theosophical Movement as it has developed over the past decades, one must admit that it has increasingly strived to be the interpreter of all other religious systems, that it has increasingly striven to bring to light the core of truth not only in Eastern but also in Western religious creeds.

[ 2 ] Today, my sole task is to show, in a few strokes, how true, authentic theosophy can be found within Christianity as it is properly understood; or rather, I must describe the role of the Theosophical Society in relation to Christianity.

[ 3 ] The Theosophical Movement seeks to be nothing more than a servant to Christianity. It seeks to serve by striving to distill the deepest core, the very essence, from the Christian creed. In doing so, it hopes not to take anything away from anyone who is attached to Christianity, whose heart is bound to Christianity. On the contrary, those who understand the Theosophical Movement know that it is precisely through it that the Christian can gain infinitely much, that the countless disputes that have arisen—today everywhere within the Christian creeds—must disappear when the true core, which can be only one core, comes to light.

[ 4 ] Of course, I cannot cover this vast topic in its full breadth and detail, and I therefore ask you to make do with the few insights I am able to offer. But surely the time has come, especially in the present, to offer what I am able to offer.

[ 5 ] Our present age is not one that loves to rise up to the spirit in its vitality. There are, of course, ideals to which people look up, and they speak much of ideals, but the idea that they could realize these ideals, that the spirit could be actively present, and that it is our task to recognize it—the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century want little to do with this. In this respect, our time differs quite fundamentally from the time of the great spirits who, following the founder of Christianity, originally shaped Christianity. Go back to the early days of Christianity, to Clement of Alexandria, for example, and you will find that in those days all learning, all knowledge, existed solely to understand one thing: to understand how the living Word, the Light of the World, could have become flesh. Our time does not love to rise to such heights of spiritual insight. Just as we have limited ourselves, with regard to the scientific view of nature, to seeing only the purely factual—that which the eyes see, that which the senses can perceive—so, in fact, religious creeds are also full of such materialistic views. And it is precisely the proponents of such materialistic views who will believe they understand the creed best. They do not realize how deeply unconscious materialistic thoughts have taken root there. Let me point out just a few examples.

[ 6 ] The 19th century made a serious effort to come to terms with Christianity. Above all, scholars approached the task critically and sought to examine the historical documents in a strictly scientific manner to determine the extent to which they contained historical and factual truth. Yes, “factual” truth—that is what religious scholars also assume today. Literally, every effort was made to examine whether one or the other evangelist speaks the pure, factual truth about what might actually have happened, what might once have taken place before people’s eyes. To investigate this is the task of so-called historical-critical theology. We see how, in the course of these investigations, the image of God incarnate has gradually taken on a materialistic hue. Let me cite one thing that continually engages those who seek the truth.

[ 7 ] In the 1830s, David Friedrich Strauss pioneered the historical investigation of the actual core of the Gospels. And after attempting to clarify what such a historical core of truth is, he set out on his own to develop a vision of Christianity. This image he conceived is in fact a product of the spirit of his time—a spirit that could not believe that something far transcending humanity, something originating from the heights of the spiritual, could ever have been realized in the world; something born of the spirit itself. What David Friedrich Strauss found is this: The true Son of God cannot be represented in a single individual. No, only all of humanity, the human race, the species alone can be the true representation of God on earth. The struggle of all humanity, understood symbolically, is the living God, but not a single individual. And all that which took shape in the narratives about the person of Christ during the times when Christianity arose—all of that is nothing other than myths created by the popular imagination. — Through his effort to portray the Son of God as the struggle and striving of the entire human race, David Friedrich Strauss has reduced the Son of God to a divine ideal.

[ 8 ] But take a look at the Gospels, search through the Christian creeds—you will never find a single word in them, and you will find no such concept anywhere in Jesus’ teachings: that is the concept of the ideal human being as Strauss conceived it. The human race, conceived in the abstract, is nowhere to be found in the Gospels. It is significant that the 19th century arrived at an image of Jesus based on a concept that Jesus never hinted at or articulated in his lifetime.

[ 9 ] Gradually, others have also taken on the task of critically examining the content of the Gospels. I cannot list the various phases here; that would go too far. But in recent years, a phrase has often been used that truly shows how unappealing it is to our time to look up to God—to the spiritual being said to have manifested in a human personality—in a manner similar to that of the first Christian century, when all learning, all wisdom, and all knowledge were devoted solely to comprehending and understanding this unique phenomenon. A word has been used, and that word is: the simple man from Nazareth. The concept of God has been abandoned. One wants—and this is ultimately the tendency inherent in these words—one wants to regard this personality, who stands at the beginning of Christianity, merely as a human being, and to view everything that is regarded as dogmatic drivel as a fantasy floating in the clouds. One wishes to remove all of that and regard the personality of Jesus as a mere human being, as a person who, though of a higher nature than other human beings, is nonetheless a human among humans, who is, in a certain sense, equal to other human beings. Thus, from a theological perspective as well, one wishes to bring the image of Christ down into the realm of the purely factual.

[ 10 ] These are two extremes I have presented to you: on the one hand, David Friedrich Strauss’s concept of God, which dissolves the image of God; on the other, the simple man from Nazareth, who embodies nothing but a pure teaching of universal humanity. This is essentially nothing other than what even those who want nothing to do with a founder of Christianity can acknowledge. We have also seen how adherents of a general moral doctrine construct the idea that Jesus essentially held and taught the same moral doctrine as is preached today by the “Society for Ethical Culture.” And they believe they can thereby elevate Jesus by showing that even before the 18th century, people had already professed what we have brought about through Kantian speculation or the Enlightenment. — In truth, however, these are teachings that were once the highest mystery, and the content of this wisdom was given only to those who have risen to the heights of humanity.

[ 11 ] Let us ask ourselves: if we adopt one or the other of these concepts of Christ, are we still, in any sense, grounded in the Gospels? I cannot explain today why I cannot share the view held by many learned theologians, namely that the fourth Gospel is less authoritative and less authentic than the first three. Anyone who clearly and carefully examines the sequence of events sees no reason why the Gospel of John—which is precisely the one that so greatly uplifts us—has, so to speak, been set aside in the pursuit of pure factuality. It is believed that the first three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—depict more the man, the pure, simple man from Nazareth, while the Gospel of John certainly claims to recognize the Word made flesh in Jesus. Here, the unconscious desire that lives in the souls became the father of the thought. But if the Gospel of John has less claim to authenticity, then it is impossible to uphold Christianity. Then it is impossible to say anything about the Christian doctrine of the person of Jesus other than that he was the simple man from Nazareth. But no one, neither I nor others who have the ancient creeds before their eyes, can say anything other than that those who originally spoke of Jesus Christ were truly speaking of God incarnate, of the higher Spirit of God who realized himself in this personality of Jesus of Nazareth.

[ 12 ] It is now the task of theosophy, above all else, to show how we are to understand this term—used primarily by John—referring to the Word made flesh. For, in truth, the other Gospels cannot be understood unless one takes the Gospel of John as the starting point. What the other evangelists recount becomes clear and lucid when one takes the words of the Gospel of John as an interpretation, as an explanation.

[ 13 ] I cannot describe in detail everything that leads to the individual points I will be making today. But I can at least point out the main issue, which is particularly offensive to the materialistically minded theologian. This includes the nativity story, which states that Jesus was not born like other human beings. This is, after all, something that David Friedrich Strauss also raised as an argument against the truth of the Gospels.

[ 14 ] What was meant by “being born from above”? It becomes clear to us immediately if we understand the Gospel of John correctly. The opening verses of the Gospel of John, the very message of the Word made flesh, declare: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through the Word, and without the Word nothing was made.” It is stated that the Word has always existed in a different form, but that it has been outwardly manifested in the person of Jesus. And we hear that through this same Word—or, let us say, through the same Spirit of God who lived in Jesus—the world itself came into being. “And in this Word was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it. A man was sent whose name was John, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but he was to bear witness to it, for the true light was yet to come into the world.” — What was to come in Jesus Christ? But immediately we hear that it was already there. “It was in the world. But the world did not recognize it. It came into individual people, but individual people did not receive it. But those who received it were able to reveal themselves as God’s children through it. Those who trusted in his name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

[ 15 ] Here you have, in what I believe to be a reasonably accurate and meaningful translation, the significance of God becoming flesh and, at the same time, the meaning of the statement: “And Christ was not born in the human way.” The “Word” has always been there, and every single person was meant to give birth to a Christ within themselves, at their very beginning. In our hearts, we all have the potential for Christ. But while this living Word, this Christ, was meant to have a place in each individual, people have not preserved him in that place, have not perceived him. This is precisely what the Gospel shows us: that the Word has always been there, that human beings could have accepted it but did not. And furthermore, we are told that some did accept it. There have always been individuals who awakened within themselves the living Spirit, the living Christ, the living Word, and those who were named after him were not born of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of human will, but they were always born of God.

[ 16 ] This finally sheds the proper light on the Gospel of Matthew. Now we understand why Christ’s birth is called “from God.” This is the best refutation of what David Friedrich Strauss claims. Not the entire human race was capable of receiving Christ within itself, even though he was for the entire human race and for all of humanity. And now there was to come one who once embodied within himself the full measure of the infinity of the Spirit. This is what gave this personality its unique significance for the early Christian teachers, who understood what was at stake. They understood that this was neither an abstract, shadowy concept nor a single human being in his actuality, but truly and really the God-man, an individual personality in the fullness of truth.

[ 17 ] Well, we can understand that all those who proclaimed the Good News of Christ in the early days held fast not only to the doctrine and to the actual person, but above all to the vision of the God-man, that they formed the conviction that he whom they had seen was a noble, a true God-man. It was not doctrine that held the first Christians together, nor what Christ taught; that was not what the first Christians believed united them. — That alone speaks against those who wanted to replace Christianity with an abstract ethical doctrine of morals. But then they are no longer Christians.

[ 18 ] It was not a matter of indifference who brought this teaching into the world; rather, its founder had truly become flesh in the world. That is why, in the early days of Christianity, less emphasis was placed on proof than on the living memory of the Lord. This is constantly emphasized. It is the personality—the God-filled personality—that holds the largest communities together. That is why the early Christian Church Fathers tell us time and again that the merit lies in the historical event from which Christianity originated. We have a reference from Irenaeus indicating that he himself had known people who, in turn, had known the apostles—those who had seen the Lord face to face. And he emphasizes that the fourth pope, Clement of Rome, had known many apostles who had also seen the Lord face to face. That is so. And why does he emphasize this? The first teachers did not want to speak solely of doctrine, not solely of logical proofs, but above all they wanted to speak of the fact that they themselves had seen with their own eyes and touched with their own hands that which had come down from above into the earthly world; that they were not there to prove something, but to bear witness to the living Word. But that was not the person whom one could see with the eyes or perceive with the senses. It is not the person who could then be called the simple man from Nazareth who proclaims the first teaching of Christianity. A single word from a certainly authoritative witness must speak to the fact that something higher underlies it all. And this word of Paul—it cannot be emphasized enough: “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” As the foundation of Christianity, Paul names the risen Christ, not the Christ who walked in Galilee and Jerusalem. Faith is in vain if Christ has not been raised. The Christian is in vain if he cannot profess faith in the risen Christ.

[ 19 ] What did they understand by the risen Christ? We can learn that from Paul as well. He tells us clearly and unambiguously what his belief in the Resurrection is based on. Everyone knows this; everyone knows that Paul is, so to speak, a later-born apostle, that he owes his conversion to Christianity to the appearance of Christ, who had long since departed from the earth. Only the theosophist can recognize the truth of this appearance of a high spiritual being. Only he knows what an initiate like Paul means when he speaks of the risen Christ appearing to him alive. And Paul tells us even more, and we must take this to heart. He tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8: “I passed on to you, first of all, what I myself received: that Christ came for our sins, that he died and was raised on the third day, and that he appeared to Cephas and the Twelve, and after this appearance to more than five hundred brothers, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Last of all, the appearance was made to me also, as to one born out of due time.”

[ 20 ] He immediately equated this appearance with the one upon which the higher faith of the other apostles was founded. He equated it with the appearance that the apostles had of Christ in general after he had died. We are thus dealing with a spiritual apparition; with a spiritual apparition that we must not conceive of in a shadowy way, as a shadowy idea, but as reality, as the theosophist conceives of the spirit; with an apparition of the spirit that, while not physical, is nevertheless more real and true than any external reality perceptible through the senses. If we bear this in mind, then it becomes clear to us that it cannot be otherwise than that in the first Christian centuries we are dealing with the Word made flesh, that the God-man is not the simple man from Nazareth, but the truly realized higher Spirit of God. When we consider this, we stand entirely on the ground of Theosophy. And perhaps no one can be called a theosophist in the true sense of the word more than the proclaimer of the miracle of the Resurrection: the Apostle Paul. No theosophist would think of viewing the Apostle Paul as anything other than a deeply initiated being, as one of those who know what is at stake.

[ 21 ] There is one thing I must emphasize here, and that is that it is not permissible to reduce this sublime phenomenon, which stands alone in the world, to a materialistic worldview; that the path to understanding the founder of Christianity does not lie in the realms where there are only “simple people,” where there are only ideals, but that it must lead upward to where the high Christ Spirit itself is. And that is what the first Christians did; they sought to walk this path in order to comprehend the living Word.

[ 22 ] You might say that you believe things have gradually changed, and you have good reason to think so. It is only because, over the course of the centuries, a sense of reality has developed—because human beings learned above all to train their senses and equip them with instruments—that they have made their progress in the external world known. But these tremendous advances in our understanding of the world—the exploration of the starry heavens through the Copernican worldview, the examination of the tiniest living beings through the microscope—have all brought us, just as every thing casts its shadow, their own downsides as well. They have brought us very specific habits of thought; habits of thought that cling above all to what is actually real, to what is perceptible to the senses. And so it has come to pass that, in the most natural way, this mode of thinking—which turns toward the purely sensory—has become a habit in the world; that it has also set about the highest religious truths and attempted to comprehend the spirit and its content in the same way that the natural scientist attempts to comprehend external nature with his senses.

[ 23 ] Ideals that contain abstract concepts can, at best, still be conceived by the materialist natural scientist. He then speaks of truth, beauty, and goodness, which seek to realize themselves more and more in the world. He imagines shadowy concepts. He can still rise to a “simplicity” in human imagination, but this scientific mindset, with its habits of thought ingrained over centuries, cannot attain anything higher—the grasping of true spirituality. These habits of thought have now reached their zenith. And just as everything that has developed one-sidedly requires a complement, so too does the legitimate materialistic mindset require spiritual deepening on the other side. It requires the kind of knowledge that lifts us to the heights of spirituality. And this lifting up to the Spirit and its reality is what Theosophy seeks. That is why it seeks above all to hold fast not to what is discussed in materialistic views, but to that which rises to the highest levels of human knowledge. From this perspective, one can understand what it means that the Word became flesh; what it means to grasp the Spirit from the Divine within the human body.

[ 24 ] Christ could not always speak his mind openly. You are all familiar with the saying: “He spoke to the people in parables, but when he was with his disciples, he explained these parables to them.” — What was the reason behind this intention of the founder of Christianity to speak, so to speak, two languages? A simple comparison can tell us where this stems from. If you need any object, a table, for example, you do not go to just anyone, but to the one who knows how to make a table. And once he has made it, you do not presume to claim that you made the table yourself. You calmly admit that you are a layman when it comes to making tables. But people do not want to admit that one can also be a layman with regard to the highest things that exist, that the simple mind, which is, so to speak, in a natural state, must first climb to the highest heights. From this has sprung the longing to bring down this highest truth to the level of common sense. But just as we, as laypeople in table-making, know when a table is good and how to put it to use, so too, when we have heard the truth, do we know whether it speaks to our hearts, whether our hearts can make use of it. But we must not presume to want to produce knowledge ourselves from the heart alone, from simple common sense. From this perspective arose the distinction that was always made in ancient times between priests and laypeople. In ancient times, we were dealing with priestly ways and with the highest truths, which were not proclaimed out on the streets, but within the mystery temples.

[ 25 ] The highest truths were revealed only to those who were sufficiently prepared. The spiritually rich were the ones who heard them, for they embody the deeper truth about the world, the human soul, and God. One had to become an initiate, a master; only then did one gain an understanding, a direct conception of what the content of the highest wisdom is. It was the case that, over the course of centuries, wisdom had flowed into the mystery temples. Outside, however, stood the masses, hearing nothing but what the priestly wisdom deemed fit to impart. The gulf between the priesthood and the laity had grown ever wider. Initiates are those who knew the wisdom of the living God. One had to climb many steps before being led up to the altar, where one was told what the wisest had discovered and revealed about the wisdom of the living God.

[ 26 ] This had been the custom for centuries. Then came a time—the time of the emergence of Christianity—when, on the great stage of world history, what had previously taken place only for the spiritually rich, for those initiated into the mysteries, unfolded before the eyes of the world as a historical fact for all people. Only those who beheld the mysteries of existence in the mystery temples could, in ancient times, according to the view of the priestly sages, attain true bliss. But the founder of Christianity was moved by a higher compassion to take a different path with all of humanity, and to grant salvation also to those who did not behold these mysteries—that is, those who could not enter the mystery temples, those who are to be led to this salvation only through a faint sense, merely through faith.

[ 27 ] And so a new creed, a new Gospel, had to be proclaimed in accordance with the intentions of the founder of Christianity—one that spoke in words different from those used by the old priests; a message spoken from the deepest wisdom and direct spiritual insight, yet one that could at the same time find an echo in the simplest human heart. This founder of Christianity therefore sought to draw disciples and apostles to himself. Wherever there were stones—that is, human hearts—from which to strike sparks, they were to be initiated into the Mystery. Thus they had to experience the Highest, which is the victory of the Word. To the people he spoke in parables, but when he was alone with them, he explained them to them.

[ 28 ] Let us cite just a few examples of how Christ sought to kindle the living Word, how he sought to draw life forth from the hearts of individual people. We hear that Christ led his disciples Peter, James, and John up the mountain and that there he underwent a metamorphosis before the eyes of his disciples. We hear that Moses and Elijah were on either side of Jesus.

[ 29 ] The theosophist knows what the mystical saying means: “to lead up the mountain.” One must be familiar with such expressions—be expertly familiar with them—just as one must know the language before one is able to study the spirit of a people. What does it mean to lead up the mountain? It means nothing other than being led into the temple of the Mysteries, where, through beholding—through mystical beholding—one can gain immediate conviction of the eternity of the human soul and of the reality of spiritual existence.

[ 30 ] These three disciples were to gain an even higher understanding than the others through their Master. Above all, they were to come to the conviction here on the mountain that the Christ was truly the living Word made flesh. That is why he reveals himself in his spirituality—in that spirituality which transcends space and time; in that spirituality for which there is no before and no after, in which everything is the present. Even the past is the present. There, the past is substantial, as Elijah and Moses appeared alongside the presence of Jesus. And now the disciples believe in the Spirit of God. But they say: It is written, after all, that before the Christ comes, Elijah will come and announce him beforehand. And now read the Gospel. These are indeed the words that follow what I have recounted. They are of the utmost significance: “Elijah has come, but they did not recognize him, and they did to him what they wanted to do to him.” — “Elijah has come,” let us note these words. And then it continues: “Then the disciples realized that he had been speaking of John the Baptist.” And Jesus had said earlier: “Tell no one what you have learned today until the Son of Man has risen.” We are led into a mystery. Christ deemed only three disciples worthy to know this mystery. And what is this mystery? He revealed that John is the reincarnated Elijah.

[ 31 ] Reincarnation has been taught throughout the ages within the mystery temples. And Christ imparted no other teaching to his close disciples than this occult theosophical doctrine. They were to become acquainted with this doctrine of reincarnation. But they were also to acquire the living word that must come from their mouths when it is enlivened and imbued with this conviction, until another has come. First, they should have the immediate conviction that the Spirit has risen. Once they have this behind them, then they should go out into the whole world and, from simple hearts, strike the sparks that have been kindled within them. That was one of the initiations, that was one of the parables that Christ gave and explained to his inner circle.

[ 32 ] Let us consider another example. The Lord’s Supper, too, is nothing other than an initiation—an initiation into the deepest meaning of the entire Christian doctrine. Only those who understand the Lord’s Supper in its true meaning can truly grasp Christian doctrine in its spirituality and truth. It is a bold thing to speak this teaching that I now wish to present to you, and I am well aware that it may be attacked from all sides because it contradicts the letter of the law. The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. It is only with great effort that one can bring oneself to grasp the true meaning of the Lord’s Supper. You will not hear about it in detail today, but let me hint at what this, which belongs to the deepest mysteries of Christianity, actually signifies. Christ gathers his apostles to celebrate with them the institution of the bloodless sacrifice. Let us understand this.

[ 33 ] To help us understand this event, let us return to another, little-noticed fact that should show us how we are to interpret the Lord’s Supper. We read in the Gospel that Christ passed by a man born blind. And those around him asked, “Has this man sinned, or have his parents, that he was born blind as a punishment?” Christ answered, “Neither this man nor his parents have sinned, but he was born blind so that the works of God might be revealed,” or better yet, “so that the divine way of governing the world might be revealed.” Thus, the fact that he was born blind is explained by the words “the divine way of governing the world.” Since he has not sinned in this life, nor have his parents, the reason must be sought elsewhere. We cannot limit ourselves to the individual personality, nor to the parents and ancestors; rather, we must contemplate the innermost depths of the soul of the man born blind; we must be prepared to seek the cause in the pre-existing souls—those souls that have experienced the consequences of a previous life. What we call karma is implied here, though not explicitly stated. And shortly we shall hear why this is not explicitly stated. That the sins of the fathers are avenged upon the children and the children’s children—this is a teaching among those into whom Christ has been incarnated. The sins of the fathers are atoned for by the children and the children’s children. This is a teaching that does not accord with the view that Christ expressed regarding the man born blind. If one adheres to the teaching that it can only be the sin of the fathers, that there is guilt and atonement only within the physical world, then he would have to suffer for what his fathers have committed.

[ 34 ] This shows us that Christ elevates his followers to an entirely new concept of guilt and atonement—a concept that has nothing to do with what takes place in the physical world, a concept that cannot hold true in the reality revealed to the eyes. Christ wanted to overcome the old concept of sin among His own—the concept that clings to physical heredity and physical reality. And was it not such a concept of guilt, one that clings to the physical and factual, that underlay the ancient sacrifices? Did not the sinners go to the altar and offer their sacrifices of atonement; did they not perform a purely physical act to cast off their sins? The old sacrifices were physical realities. But in physical reality, as Christ taught, guilt and atonement cannot be sought. Therefore, even the Highest, even the Spirit of God, the living Word, can fall into reality to the point of death—the death to which Christ fell—without being guilty. No external sacrifice can correspond to the concept of guilt and atonement. The Lamb of God was the most innocent; it can die the sacrificial death.

[ 35 ] This was to bear witness before the whole world, on the stage of history, that guilt and atonement do not find their embodiment in reality, cannot exist in physical reality, but must be sought in a higher realm, the realm of spiritual life. If the guilty party could be subjected to actual punishment only in physical life, if the guilty party need only make sacrifices, then the innocent Lamb would not have had to die on the cross. So that people might be redeemed from the belief that guilt and atonement are to be found in external reality, that they are a consequence of externally inherited sin—for this reason Christ took upon Himself the sacrifice of the cross. And so he truly died for the faith of all people, to bear witness that the awareness of guilt and atonement is not to be sought in physical consciousness. Therefore, everyone should remember: Even the sacrifice on the cross is not what matters; rather, when a person rises above guilt and atonement to seek the cause and effect of his actions in the spiritual realm, only then has he attained the truth.

[ 36 ] Therefore, the final sacrifice—the bloodless sacrifice—is at the same time proof of the impossibility of external sacrifice, so that the bloodless sacrifice is instituted, and so that man must seek guilt and atonement, the awareness of the connection between his deeds, in the spiritual realm. This should be kept in mind. Therefore, the sacrificial death should not be regarded as the decisive factor; rather, in place of the bloody sacrifice, the bloodless, spiritual sacrifice—the Lord’s Supper—should take its place as a symbol that guilt and atonement for human deeds exist in the spiritual realm. This, however, is the theosophical doctrine of karma: that everything a person has in any way brought about through their actions produces its effects through purely spiritual laws, and that karma has nothing to do with physical heredity. The bloodless sacrifice, the Lord’s Supper, serves as an outward sign of this.

[ 37 ] Yet the Christian creed implicitly holds that the Eucharist is a symbol of karma. Christianity simply had a different mission. I have already hinted at it. Karma and reincarnation, the chain of destiny in the spiritual realm, and the reincarnation of the human soul—these were profound esoteric truths that were taught within the esoteric temples. Christ, like all great teachers, taught His disciples within the temples. But then they were to go out into the whole world, after the power and fire of God had been kindled within them, so that even those who do not see might still believe and be saved.

[ 38 ] That is why he gathered his disciples together right at the beginning, to tell them that they are not merely teachers in the Kingdom of the Spirit, but that they are to be something else. And that is the deeper meaning of the first words of the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who are beggars for the Spirit, for they find within themselves the Kingdoms of Heaven.” Only in this way can it be understood, if translated correctly, how it is possible to arrive at knowledge through living contemplation. But now, those who are beggars for the Spirit are to find, through their simple hearts, the paths to the Kingdom in the Spirit, in Heaven.

[ 39 ] The apostles should not speak of the highest truths in public; they should clothe this knowledge in simple words. But they themselves should be perfect. That is why we see those who are meant to be bearers of the Word of God teaching true theosophy, expounding a true theosophical doctrine. Take and understand the words of Paul, understand the words of Dionysius the Areopagite, and then those of Scotus Erigena, who in his book *On the Division of Nature* taught the sevenfold division of the human being, just as all theosophists do; then you will know that their interpretation of Christianity was the same as that which theosophy bestows upon it today. Theosophy seeks to bring to light nothing other than what the Christian teachers taught in the first centuries. It seeks to serve the Christian message; it seeks to interpret it in spirit and in truth. This is the task of Theosophy in relation to Christianity. Theosophy exists not to overcome Christianity, but to recognize it in its truth.

[ 40 ] And you need nothing more than to understand Christianity in its truth; then you will have Theosophy in its entirety. You do not need to turn to another religion. You can remain a Christian and need do nothing more than what true Christian teachers have done: namely, ascend to explore the spiritual depths of Christianity. Then those theologians who hold the belief that Theosophy is a Buddhist teaching will also be refuted, but the belief that one should not recognize the deep teachings of Christianity by ascending to the heights, but rather by descending into the depths, is also refuted. Theosophy can only lead to an ever-deeper understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation, so that one may then comprehend the Word which, despite all rationalistic attempts at denial, lies within the Bible. Whoever immerses themselves in the Bible cannot profess allegiance to rationalism, nor to David Friedrich Strauss, nor to his followers. They can only and solely profess the words spoken by Goethe, who saw more deeply into these matters than many others. He says: “The Bible remains, after all, the Book of Books, the World Book, which, when properly understood, must become the Christian means of education for humanity—in the hands not of the impertinent, but of the wise.”

[ 41 ] Theosophy is a servant of the Word in this regard, and it seeks to bring forth the spirit that is willing to ascend to where the founder of Christianity stood; to generate that spirit which has not merely human but cosmic significance, that spirit which had understanding not only for the simple human heart moving within the everyday, but which had such a deep understanding of the human heart precisely because its gaze penetrated the depths of the world’s mysteries. There is no better word to illustrate this than one that, though not found in our Gospels, has been handed down in another way. Jesus and his disciples came upon a dead dog that had already begun to decompose. The disciples turned away. But Jesus looked at the animal with pleasure and admired its beautiful teeth. Paradoxical as the parable may be, it leads us to a deeper understanding of the essence of Christ. It is a testimony that a person feels the Word alive within them when they do not pass by any thing in the world without understanding, when they know how to delve deeply and immerse themselves in all that exists, and cannot even pass by what seems repulsive without exercising tolerance and understanding; the understanding that allows us to see into the smallest things and lifts us up to the highest, the understanding of the gaze from which nothing is hidden, which passes nothing by, which allows everything to come near in perfect tolerance, which carries in its heart the conviction that truly everything that exists is, in some form, “flesh of our flesh, blood of our blood”: Whoever has struggled to reach this understanding is the one who truly knows and understands what it means: the living Spirit of God was realized in a single person, the living Spirit of God from whom the whole world is made.

[ 42 ] This is the spirit that the Theosophist seeks to revive. That spirit, which, incidentally, had by no means died out entirely in centuries past; that spirit which does not seek the standard for the highest from the average intellect, from a subordinate standpoint, but which seeks above all to elevate itself, to cultivate within itself the highest insights, because it is convinced: that if he has purified and spiritualized himself, the Spirit will descend toward him. “If Christ is born a thousand times in Bethlehem and not within you, you remain lost forever.” So said the great mystic Angelus Silesius. He also knew what a teaching means when it becomes highest knowledge, when it becomes life. To Nicodemus, Jesus said: Whoever is born again, whoever is born from above, no longer speaks what he says merely from human experience; he speaks it “from above.” — He speaks words such as those spoken by Angelus Silesius at the end of *The Cherubic Wanderer*: “If you wish to read more, then go” and become the Scripture yourself and the very essence.”

[ 43 ] This is the demand made by the one through whom the Spirit speaks. One should not listen to him, nor listen only to his words, but allow that which speaks through him to resonate within oneself.

[ 44 ] For this word, for this good news, Jesus chose those who said: “What has been from the beginning, the eternal law of the world, what we have seen with our own eyes and touched with our own hands—this Word of Life—we proclaim to you.” — It was He who was a single human being and who at the same time lived in the words of the disciples.

[ 45 ] But he said one more thing that theosophists, above all, must be aware of: that he was not merely present during the time in which he taught and lived, but that these meaningful words have been handed down to us: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” And Theosophy knows that he is with us, that today, just as then, he can shape our words, inspire our words, that today, just as then, he can also guide us, that our words express what he himself is. But there is one thing Theosophy wants to prevent. It wants to prevent the need to say: He came, he is here, but they did not recognize him. People have wanted to do with him as they pleased. — No, the theosophist wants to go to his own sources. Theosophy is meant to spiritually elevate us to spirituality, so that people may recognize that he is there, so that they may know where to find him, and so that they may hear the living word of the one who said:

[ 46 ] “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”