The Rudolf Steiner Archive

34. The Bible and Wisdom II

[ 1 ] Today it falls to us to elaborate further on the relationship between the Bible and wisdom, but first we must offer some reflections on the “Old Testament.” Yesterday we mentioned only the creation of humankind and the important passage: “God breathed into the man’s nostrils,” and so on. (Genesis 2:7) Today we want to try to penetrate the essence of the Bible. So let us first consider what can arouse wonder in human beings. It is helpful here to single out specific facts. The long lives of the patriarchs in the Bible can arouse wonder. The materialist natural scientist, of course, says: That is not possible. A form of theosophy that indulges in generalizing a concept says: We should not understand Adam, Seth, and Enoch as individual human beings, but as tribes; that is, they are the names of tribes. The matter is not that simple. We must delve deeper into the laws of life. We must, once and for all, refrain from symbolizing and allegorizing, and not ask: “What does this mean?”

[ 2 ] I have already spoken to you once before, in a different context, about the reason for this great age. At that time, I cited a conversation between two poets, Anzengruber and Rosegger. You are familiar with Rosegger’s charming portrayal of the mountain people. Everything he portrays is the result of careful observation. When you watch Anzengruber’s plays, you see farmers who stand firmly on their own two feet. Now, there is something very curious. Anzengruber never lived among farmers. He lived in the city and did not like to go out into the countryside. Rosegger said to him: “If you were to observe the farmers more closely, you would be able to portray them even better.” Anzengruber replied: “I have never seen farmers, but my father, mother, and grandparents were farmers, and that has remained in my blood and stirs within me.”

[ 3 ] Direct heredity has a much stronger effect than when bloodlines are mixed. This is still true today when a son comes from an unmixed bloodline. In the past, this was the case to a high degree; it was not merely a figment of the imagination. In ancient times, people did not marry outside their own tribe at all. It was considered a great sin to step outside one’s bloodline. Among all ancient peoples, you will find legends and traditions in which breaking this commandment had to be atoned for. There was no concept of blood brotherhood among ancient peoples, and what coursed through the blood was a completely different power. Back then, blood kinship brought with it a kind of clairvoyance. Today that is a thing of the past; today, it would even lead to harm. This clairvoyance manifested itself back then in such a way that people did not merely live in their imagination, but had actual memories that reached far back in time. Just as you remember your youth today, people back then remembered events from the lives of their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. People today do not believe this. Back then, what the father had done was felt as: “I did it.” For us today, this is a most wondrous situation. Thus, the experiences of the fathers were incorporated into one’s memory, as in Anzengruber’s case. Back then, you could have perceived your father as your “I,” so that people did not refer to themselves as “I” at that time, but rather encompassed father, mother, grandfather, and great-grandfather all as “I”; they perceived the entire generation as “I.” Thus, “Adam” referred to everything that people perceived as a shared consciousness over the centuries; patriarchs are an “I”-consciousness that encompasses an entire generation. It is important to understand that this consciousness arose from the memory of blood brotherhood. This is how one understands those passages in the Bible, and through them a great wisdom is revealed to us. In this way, I could explain, chapter by chapter, how theosophy underlies our religious sentiment.

[ 4 ] And now from the “Old Testament” to the “New,” to the Gospel itself. We distinguish between the time before Jesus Christ and the time after Jesus Christ. The coming of Jesus Christ into this world is the most significant and powerful event in the development of humanity. Something entirely new emerged then. Recent research has gradually picked the Gospels apart. Contradictions were sought out, and these have contributed little to our understanding. What confusion, for example, would such a dissection of the Apocalypse cause? I will mention just one fact here: The Secret Revelation of John was regarded by Bible scholars as a prophecy concerning future events in human history—or even past ones. Some said, for example, that John the Presbyter lived after Nero, and that he wrote only about what had happened in terms of earthquakes, plagues, and so on. Now I would like to point out a curious passage where great events and upheavals were brought about by a beast. The number of this beast is a human number, “666.” Researchers have sensed something here; they have heard that things were expressed through numbers, certain names, and forms. One possibility was to use the alphabet as numbers. This was the case in certain secret schools. Now researchers—diligent, industrious researchers—have discovered that Nero is supposed to represent the beast, simply to avoid believing that there is something spiritual behind it. People simply did not know what it was all about. The true theosophist must first acquire wisdom in order to understand the meaning of the Bible.

[ 5 ] 666 is composed of 400, 200, 60, and 6. This means or signifies: Sorat. It also has a specific symbol: a staff with two wings or ram’s horns. (Rev. 13:11) This is the symbol of this being. Spiritual science sees in everything not only a material but also a spiritual being; for example, the sun is the body of the solar soul. For spiritual science, it is the spirit that propels humanity forward; its adversary is Sorat—666. The Book of Revelation says: This beast has two horns, like a lamb or a ram. If you know these things, then you also know what the writer is saying. You see that one must first know what is at stake, and this requires wisdom.

[ 6 ] Augustine, the recognized Church Father of various denominations, made an important statement regarding the secular status of Christianity: “What is called Christianity has always existed; it is just that the true religion, which has always been lived out, has been understood in various ways.”

[ 7 ] But where did Christianity exist before Jesus Christ appeared? In the Mystery. What was the Mystery? That which we today call the church, the school, or the art institution. Knowledge of these things was used as preparation, serving as an introduction to understanding, just as the divine Spirit descended and then ascended again. There, too, one learned to hear the mysteries of worldly existence expressed in sounds. Richard Wagner sensed this anew and strove to convey it. Such schools existed, and each person was first tested to determine whether, through their capacity for comprehension, feeling, and understanding, they were suitable to be gradually led into a sensually perceptible, direct experience. That was the initiation. — There were various stages, for people progressed to different degrees. One thing was necessary: that one undergo a specific, prescribed course of development, and this was perpetuated in the schools through the initiates. The various stages had different names:

1st Level: The Ravens.
2nd Level: The Occultists.
3rd Level: The Warriors.
4th Level: The Lions.
5th Level: had a common name, for example, “Persian.” Christ says of Nathanael: “a true Israelite.” (John 1:47)
6th Level: the Sun Hero (Son).
7th Level: was not referred to as (Father).

[ 8 ] Let us take one from the 6th level, a Sun Hero. His life was as it had been for millennia. He could stray from his prescribed path just as little as the Sun can stray from its orbit, and so he follows the strictly harmonious paths of the worlds. If he were to step outside this path, a calamity would occur—one as unimaginable as if the Sun itself were to step out of its orbit. Ancient, ancient legends speak of Sun Heroes: Hermes, Buddha, Zarathustra, Pythagoras; even in Germanic lands: Siegfried—with a few variations—represents a fundamental archetype. Why is that? Because back then, the approach was exactly the opposite of what it is today. The ancient principle was: do not concern yourself with everyday matters, but seek the essential. Back then, people described what one had to undergo to achieve initiation. The life prescribed for a thousand years was the description of life itself. Hermes had lived according to this prescription, and thus, in describing his life, he described what others before him had already experienced.

[ 9 ] We will gain a better understanding of the matter if we grasp the meaning of the stages: One stage shaped the character; another brought the phenomena of the astral world closer; others led to the exploration of even higher worlds. Once this was understood at that time, something special occurred. Then there was a final act of initiation. The initiate was placed by the initiated hierophant into a state in which the body lay as if dead for three and a half days. The etheric and astral bodies were drawn out and wandered through the spiritual worlds under the guidance of the hierophant-high priest. Then they were returned to the body, and the initiate received a new name. Now he knew from his own experience what happens in the spiritual worlds, and he was now a reborn person. He could bear witness to the fact that spiritual life conquers death. Every time the person returned to the body, he awoke with the cry: “My God, my God, how you have glorified me.”

[ 10 ] Only those who achieved the victory of life over death could attain knowledge. This has occurred time and time again in the esoteric schools. This process has been veiled.

[ 11 ] Compare this with the description of the life of Christ Jesus. In him, what took place within the Mysteries manifested itself physically. First came the trial by the sage, then came the baptism, and finally he was laid in a cross-shaped coffin. This took place outwardly and historically in the Mystery of Golgotha. Some people refuse to understand this and say: “You interpret it this way and take it as a historical event.”

[ 12 ] Being hung on the cross is the outward representation of what was once prophetically true for the initiates; a profound meaning that is both mystically and historically true. It is as if you were to enter a temple of the arts where a drama depicts the year 1920, and what you see there would later come to pass. Previously, the mysteries depicted what would later occur in the life of Christ Jesus. Those who described this life drew upon ancient initiation traditions from the prophetic mysteries. Such a solar hero had to live according to the rules of initiation. They existed for thousands upon thousands of years, and thus they corresponded to the Gospels. Hence the great correspondence: the exclamation “My God, my God, how have you glorified me,” or “How have you forsaken me,” appears very similar in both text and pronunciation. Thus Augustine could say: “Christianity is the true religion.”

[ 13 ] The saying, “Blessed are those who believe without seeing” (John 20:29), referred to the vision of the initiated. Thus, the Gospels are the same as the ancient books of initiation. They existed before Christ Jesus. But He lived it out and put it into practice in the physical world, because the mighty power of this unique personality made it possible. Thus, Christianity appears to us as the fulfillment of ancient wisdom, and the Bible gives us what could be experienced in the initiations: the wisdom of the initiates.

[ 14 ] The simple person who simply approaches the Bible finds his heart uplifted by it, and he fervently perceives the wisdom that underlies it all. No one would perceive this wisdom if it were not for the wisdom that brought the Bible into being.

[ 15 ] Today, with a few exceptions, people are no longer able to approach it with faith. A new understanding of the Bible must now be developed. I would like to offer a comparison here. In the Middle Ages, people swore by the books of Aristotle. Galileo could not do that. He was the first to perform an autopsy on the human body and to show how certain nerves originate in the brain and not, as Aristotle taught, in the heart. At that time, the facts truly contradicted one another, and Galileo said: “Away with all of Aristotle.” — What is the situation today? What Aristotle called a nerve was not a nerve at all, and so Aristotle was proven right again. First, one must examine the things themselves; only then does one return to Aristotle.

[ 16 ] The same must be true of the Bible. The spiritual researcher describes what he himself sees as “imagined inspiration”—a visual representation of inspiration, independent of any book—and we can therefore assume that what he himself sees is written down literally and correctly. Once we understand this, we develop a deep reverence for this book, and we sense that the life of this Savior was truly written through inspiration.

[ 17 ] Through such an achievement, our relationship with the spiritual worlds will take on a different form, and we will learn to look up to the inspired ones with great reverence. First, we must build a bridge to those who explore the wisdom of the Bible. The teacher will be wiser, the listener more fervent—the hearts of teachers and believers will resonate together. This will be the success of Theosophy:

[ 18 ] Two things will come to pass:

1. Wisdom, independent of the Bible,
2. How

[ 19 ] Thus, the book that was once sacred will once again become sacred to us, and thus a true spiritual movement will be the rediscovery of the primordial wisdom taught by the Bible. Through the freest possible understanding and true progress, the Bible must once again be made fruitful for religious life through Theosophy. Answers to Questions

[ 20 ] Question: [Not recorded].

[ 21 ] Rudolf Steiner: Everything is in a state of development, including the “I.” This “I” emerged from a group “I.” Just as the finger on your hand does not feel itself to be an “I,” so, too, did human beings at that time feel themselves to be a group “I.”

[ 22 ] Question: [Not recorded].

[ 23 ] Rudolf Steiner: There were individuals who were contemporaries of Jesus Christ. There are no historical sources about him. One passage in Josephus is a forgery; and one passage in Tacitus is as well. Historians therefore say: There is no evidence of this Jesus Christ.

[ 24 ] In our time, there are deeply initiated individuals; but if, after 1,900 years, someone were to attempt to prove historically whether such initiates ever existed, they would find nothing about them. Today, however, there are individuals who were contemporaries of Christ and who know—indeed, can testify—that they stood eye to eye with Jesus Christ.

[ 25 ] Question: Does silence help develop certain powers?

[ 26 ] Rudolf Steiner: Through the suppression of certain words—which, however, are not spoken. Certain religious communities are governed by certain fundamental laws. The Trappists know full well that whoever is a good listener now will be a good speaker in their next incarnation.