The Rudolf Steiner Archive

23. The Apocalypse of John I

[ 1 ] With the Apocalypse, we delve into the very depths of the Christian worldview; every great religion has had its esoteric teachers, including Christianity. Above all, we must be clear about what the essence of the secret teaching actually is. The Apocalypse is nothing other than the Christian secret teaching. One need only understand the key words: “Blessed are those who believe and do not see.” That is the core of Christianity. Believing and seeing are two opposites. Christianity was also meant to bring bliss to those who believed, even if they did not see. The great mystery on Golgotha had its precursors in earlier human races. Even in the ancient mysteries—as long as our root race has been on Earth—people celebrated something in secret temples, revealing to the people nothing other than the mystery of God’s deeds in the world.

[ 2 ] We accompany our ancestors to the places that were most sacred to them. There, they were shown how God Himself descends to Earth, how He merges with material existence. This is called the crucifixion of the Deity in the earthly realm. This was depicted by placing a human figure into a kind of coffin; this signified that the Deity enters into matter. Then it was shown that human beings must perfect themselves; only then would they find God Himself within themselves. This is the very same power that is crucified in matter and can therefore be reborn anew from matter.

[ 3 ] Everything that religion, art, and science have become originated from the mysteries. The mysteries were a pictorial representation of what later took place on Golgotha. The drama of God unfolded in ever greater detail. — If one could follow what the temple priest said to the temple student, one would hear roughly the same thing as is written in the Gospel of John. It had crystallized into a canon. The Christian Gospels are ancient temple records. The teaching was drawn from the depths of the temple. It is nothing new. This is hinted at in the Gospels, particularly in John. What the disciple saw in the temple was meant to depict what had taken place in the world. This was depicted in this one Testament. John expresses what was depicted in the temple:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not understood it. [John 1:1–5]

[ 4 ] The student who was admitted to the mysteries could behold, within the mysteries, an image of the great mystery of the world. What had been depicted in this way in the mysteries had actually taken place in Palestine. Christianity is a fulfillment. It has stepped out onto the historical stage; the temple records were kept secret. Those admitted to the Mysteries had to take a sacred oath not to reveal anything to the uninitiated. Today, any science can lay claim to this knowledge, but the ancients said: Only a pure heart may know; in an impure heart, knowledge becomes an evil power. - Only those who could convey the word of knowledge to others with a worthy heart and sentiment were permitted to know. Only the word of knowledge that was imbued with good, pure, and noble sentiment was held in esteem. The temple documents were the secret revelation for the students of the Mysteries.

[ 5 ] Now Christ had truly been revealed. As a result, Christianity was brought out of the temples and onto the world stage for the whole world to see. Blessed, too, were those who believed without ever setting foot in the temples. For millennia, a secret teaching had been proclaimed in the temples; this was revealed through the appearance of Christ.

[ 6 ] The initiates are to work in such a way that people are prepared for the future. The prophets were initiated into the mysteries. The content of every initiation is revealed later. At that very moment, new content is given for a new future. Christ Himself performed such an initiation in the miracle of Lazarus. The Gospel had been revealed through Christianity and had become a message. A new esoteric teaching now developed within early Christianity. Outwardly, the content of the Gospels was proclaimed—the Passion and the Resurrection. In the Mysteries, however, events of the future were depicted. Even today, there are still Christian Mysteries. In them, what is to happen in the distant future is depicted.

[ 7 ] Christ is what is called in Theosophy the second Entity of the Divine Trinity. This consists of the three Entities: God the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is that toward which everything strives, the essence toward which the entire unknown universe is moving. The Word is the guide to the Father. It has been regarded in all worlds as that which leads to the Father. “Veda” means “Word.” The oldest Indian texts were called the “Vedas.” The Indians knew that their rishis—their teachers—were inspired; they imparted the “Vedas,” the “Word” inspired by the Deity, the Word from which the world came into being. In ancient India, the Word was not something external. It reflected the essence of the object.

[ 8 ] The ancient Germans had a runic script; in ancient times, when a person uttered the name of a thing, he knew that the thing had come into being from that word. This is why we find among the Jews the unpronounceable name of God, because He was the essence itself. That is why God’s actual name—Yahweh—was used only on the most solemn occasions and during the most sacred rituals.

[ 9 ] The ancient peoples said to themselves: The world came into being through the Word, the Logos. The Word once set the world in motion—rhythmic movements from which the world emerged. The third divine being is that which can grasp the Word, which gives the strength to strive upward toward the Father. —The Word, the divine creative power, the second member of the divine Trinity, has taken on human form.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. [John 1:14]

[ 10 ] Human beings will not always appear in this gross material form; the evolution of human beings in the flesh is the fourth round or the fourth cycle. Previously, human beings existed in a freer form of matter and remained in a completely different mode of existence throughout three cycles. But the abilities they now possess could only be attained in the physical body. They must now evolve upward again through finer forms of matter.

[ 11 ] The sixth cycle will be something special. It will then exist in a more refined form of matter. Today, we can embody the word only through physical vibrations in the air. Only to the extent that I express my being through the word does another being come into being. But in the sixth cycle, we will consist of a finer substance, so that we will radiate our entire being outward in vibrations and reveal our entire being to all people. Today, human beings can conceal many things through coarse materiality. But then, in the sixth cycle, we will be entirely vibration, entirely sound—beings who communicate with the environment through rhythmic or non-rhythmic waves. Then the Word, the name of the human being, will be outward physicality. Now, human beings cannot communicate their entire being to the outside world. But there have always been beings who are superhuman, like the Word itself; these can already be in the flesh in the fourth cycle what others will become in the sixth cycle. The Word has already become flesh in Christ. What can be accomplished for human beings in the sixth cycle has already been established in humanity through Christ in the fourth cycle. This is the mystery of the Incarnation of the Logos.

[ 12 ] The goal of human beings is this: You should develop to the point where you can turn your entire being outward. This is what it means to follow Christ. In the sixth cycle, human beings are to become what Christ exemplified for them in the fourth cycle. Clement of Alexandria and Origen were Christian initiates and fully imbued with the full significance of this goal—that a millennium, a cycle, must come in which human beings will find the opportunity to be an outward imprint of Christ living in the flesh. Thus, a dormant Christ-principle is hidden within human beings. For this to be revealed, human beings must pass through various states. This was depicted in the early Christian mysteries. We find this in the first chapters of the Book of Revelation. The “Firstborn from the dead” signifies that he was the model in the fourth round of what it means to live out the entire Word in such a way that it will be revealed.

[ 13 ] Human evolution is much older than history. Our current root race—[the Aryan,] the fifth—developed its first subrace in what is now India. The Indian religious texts were written much later. In the earliest times, no external knowledge of human evolution was entrusted to humankind. This evolution was guided by the ancient Rishis toward a religious creed that was, in a wondrous way, monotheistic. The second sub-race—that of the Persians—developed a religion based on the principle of duality; however, it, too, was not written down until much later. In the third sub-race, particularly in Egypt, a triune deity was recognized. This had a retroactive effect on the preceding races. It was only then that the Vedas were written down. The mysteries were revealed in the Egyptian pyramid temples; the Gospels were derived from there. The flight into Egypt points to this.

[ 14 ] The third subrace is followed by the fourth, the Greco-Roman subrace, in which Christianity developed; then the scientific worldview took shape in place of the religious one; the culture of the intellect developed beginning in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries. Like a swan song, something of the old worldview still lingered in that era, with which the new worldview became intertwined at that time.

[ 15 ] The revelation of a person’s innermost being to others is what must become the confession of faith in Christ. Those who can fully comprehend that Christ belongs to the world will be the twenty-four elders who worship the Lamb—Christ. In the future, during the sixth root race, some will be able to worship the Lamb in all its significance. Then human beings will be able to join those who worship the Lamb. This is represented by the symbol of the four living creatures—the lion, the cow, the human, and the eagle—who worship among the elders.

[ 16 ] In addition to the physical body, human beings also have an astral body. This body is not yet as far along in its development as the physical body. In relation to the physical body, human beings are like God; the human race will become even more beautiful. Further perfection will come as human beings perfect their astral bodies. Perception, feeling, and the like will become more perfect. This will take place in the fifth cycle. We are still facing this cycle. At present, the human astral body is not yet that far developed. Only the physical body is developed at this time. It is not until the fifth cycle that the human being will truly become human in the astral body. When a human lies there before the Lamb, filled with feeling and in adoration, he does not yet stand there as a complete human being. There he takes on one of the forms of the animal realm. He has attained this astral form of the human being through earlier stages of development. Certain characteristics of the animal realm are expressed in the races. Courage is symbolized by the lion; sensual creativity by the ox, the cow; man represents the lower human, the Kama-Manas human, who rises above the earthly. — These are not yet godlike. Humans blend into the godlike and are symbolized by the four animals; this is the point in time when humanity will have reached the sixth root race, after another cataclysm has swept across the Earth.

[ 17 ] Now John describes further, later conditions. The messages are sent to the seven churches. The races live not only one after the other, but also side by side. They also all have leaders about whom history tells us nothing.

[ 18 ] The various schools that have fulfilled their purpose and now cling rigidly and conservatively to their task—but which must hand over their mission to humanity—are the seven churches. These receive the seven epistles. Apocalyptic literature first dispels the old esoteric teachings to make way for the new esoteric teaching. To the seven churches it is said: You can no longer be leaders; now a new revelation must come, a new church.

[ 19 ] The apocalyptic writer also described the three subsequent spheres. These spheres cannot be seen through astral clairvoyance, but only when a person enters the world of Devachan, the mental world. When a person has reached this stage, he sees in the spirit. When a person enters this world of Devachan, they do not see, but rather hear. There, they are clairaudient. “Clairaudient” is the term we use for the spiritual world. There, they hear the music of the spheres, which was spoken of in the Pythagorean schools. Goethe also alludes to this sound when he speaks of the spirit. “The sun resounds,” says Goethe. This points to the audible realm as it exists in Devachan. “Their sight gives strength to the angels.” The angels are the spiritual beings who preside over the planets. If one wishes to see how a cycle unfolds, one must recognize in the world that which resounds; the apocalyptic writer alludes to these world cycles in the trumpets of the angels.

[ 20 ] In the sixth round, the entire nature of things will now be revealed to all. But even before the sixth round begins, human beings can develop the Christ principle from within themselves. What was once external has become an inner capacity in human beings through internalization, or involution. Externalization—evolution—in the great laws of the world, and internalization—involution—are like exhalation and inhalation. As human beings pass through the races, they absorb into themselves what lives around them. All have passed through the ancient Indian era, then through all the other subraces, and thus they will enter the time when they will lie in worship at the feet of the Lamb. The seven seals will be unsealed when humanity has come to the knowledge of itself, to the worship of Christ. Then the book will be unsealed. Because John indicates that this will occur before the seventh race, he first has six seals opened; only later, when humanity has progressed further in its development, will the seventh seal be opened.