The Rudolf Steiner Archive

1. The Language of Truth in the Gospels: The Christian Mystery

[ 1 ] When we speak of the Christian mystical development of the human being, we must take into account that the path Christianity has taken toward higher spiritual development has always been a strictly prescribed one. Only those who withdrew from external culture could ever follow the Christian-Gnostic path of development. Its utter rigor is not feasible for a person who is engaged in external work. However, anyone can achieve a great deal simply by approaching this path. Nevertheless, the Christian path requires a very significant level of development. It differs from all other paths, however, in that within this path, a person cannot arrive at the knowledge of reincarnation and karma through their own insight.

[ 2 ] In esoteric Christianity, people apparently believed in reincarnation. But this belief is not part of exoteric Christianity proper. There was a specific reason why Christianity in the past did not hold this doctrine.

[ 3 ] One need only go back a few thousand years to find that the teachings of reincarnation and karma were widespread throughout the world. Only among peoples of Semitic descent did the teachings of reincarnation and karma recede somewhat. Otherwise, these teachings were found everywhere at that time. People who were weighed down by their fate used to say to themselves: “This is one life among many; what I prepare in this life will be rewarded in another.” — Back then, there was a constant looking upward toward the higher worlds. This was universal, including among the Chaldean priest-sages. To them, the stars were the expression of a soul and a spirit; they were the bodies of spirits. For them, the entire cosmos was animated by spiritual beings. They spoke of the laws governing the movement of the stars as the will of the spirits whose bodies are the sun and the planets. People at that time lived by continually directing their souls upward toward the spirit. The work that people accomplished outwardly on Earth at that time was primitive, whereas the spiritual permeation of the universe was at work among them to a great degree. One finds lofty spiritual insights there alongside a primitive material culture.

[ 4 ] Now an age was to come that would increasingly cultivate external, material culture—an age that, so to speak, would conquer the globe for the sake of material culture. People’s gaze was to rest on physical life. The thinking of the Chaldean priest-sages, the disciples of Hermes, and the disciples of the ancient Rishis was directed toward spiritual life. For all of them, repeated earthly lives were a fact. People had to set this aside for a time. All human beings were to go through a single incarnation without knowing anything about repeated earthly lives. This had already been prepared eight hundred years before the beginning of Christianity. Gradually, this is flowing back into our time. Today, it is well known to those familiar with occult currents that Christianity, too, must now take up the teachings of reincarnation and karma once again.

[ 5 ] This is evident from the Mystery on Mount Tabor. It refers to an event that took place “on the mountain.” “On the mountain” is a key phrase, meaning that the Master leads his disciples into the innermost realm to impart the most intimate teachings to them there. It says: “The disciples were caught up.” This means that they were led into higher worlds. There, Elijah, Moses, and Jesus appeared to them. This signifies that space and time were transcended. Moses and Elijah, who were no longer there, appeared to them in the devachanic state. The name Elijah means something like “the way of God,” the goal. The word El, meaning God, is contained in Elohim, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and also in Bel. The name Moses represents the truth. Moses is the occult designation for the truth. Jesus means “life.” Christ himself, standing in the center, is life. There, as it were, the words “The Way, the Truth, and the Life” were inscribed in the mental plane in letters of bronze. The disciples say, “Let us build huts here.” This means that they were second-degree chelas. Furthermore, the Lord says: “Elijah has appeared again; they just did not recognize him. But tell no one until I come again.” He is speaking here of reincarnation; John the Baptist is Elijah. The “coming again” refers to the return of Christ Jesus. An understanding of this event should be prepared through the anthroposophical worldview.

[ 6 ] Once all people have gone through the experience in one incarnation of knowing nothing about reincarnation and karma, then reincarnation will be taught again. However, within the innermost circles of Christianity, reincarnation has always been regarded as truth. This can be seen wherever there were initiates who taught through their actions. One example of this is the Trappist Order. Through complete abstinence from speech in one incarnation, they train themselves to become skilled orators for subsequent incarnations. Thus, by practicing the opposite in one incarnation, a very special gift is developed for the next incarnation. Fiery orators are to be cultivated through abstinence from speech.

[ 7 ] What was to be taught outwardly in that age was that human beings should hold fast to the belief that life on earth is limited to this one life. People should tell themselves: An entire eternity depends on what happens in this one life. A radical expression of this view is the doctrine of eternal punishment in hell. The world would not have been conquered if the teachers of Christianity had not left behind the teaching that this one life should be regarded as so important. The great teachers never presented absolute truths, but rather what is appropriate for human beings. The great teachers never teach the ultimate truths, but rather what is beneficial for a given age. The doctrine of reincarnation would not have been appropriate in this era. Nor is what spiritual science teaches the ultimate truth; rather, the anthroposophical worldview must be taught now because that is what is appropriate today. The people who are now hearing the teachings of spiritual science will hear the truth in a completely different way in a later incarnation. Within three thousand years, we will learn something that lies on a higher plane, because we have already passed through anthroposophy once before. This is the spiritual aspect. But everything spiritual must also have a counterpart in the physical realm. As early as a few centuries before Christ, the individuality that appeared in Christ was already at work in preparation.

[ 8 ] In order for humans to believe that a single incarnation was the only one, it was necessary for something to cut off the brain from the knowledge of the higher principles within the human being—Atma, Buddhi, Manas—and from the knowledge of reincarnation. To this end, wine was given to humans. In the past, only water had been used in all temple rituals. Then the use of wine was introduced, and a divine being—Bacchus, Dionysus—even became the representative of wine. The most deeply initiated disciple, John, reveals in his Gospel what wine signifies for inner development. At the wedding at Cana in Galilee, water was turned into wine. Through wine, human beings were prepared in such a way that they no longer understood reincarnation. At that time, the sacrificial water was turned into wine, and we are now in the process of turning wine back into water. Anyone who wishes to ascend to the higher realms of existence must abstain from every drop of alcohol.

[ 9 ] In the Gospel of John, every line represents a profound experience for each individual and for all of humanity. Jesus said: “I have come here to usher in this epoch of evolution.” — Paul, an initiate, calls Christ the “reversed Adam.” In Adam, we have the first human being to appear in this form. Thus, the spiritual human being is brought into incarnation on Earth. Now he can take one of two paths. He can accept what the gods give him, or acquire something new for himself. This is the story of Cain and Abel. Abel takes the animals that are there. Cain works to earn what he sacrifices. Through what Cain works for, bread comes into being. Bread has always symbolized what human beings work for themselves. By working to produce bread, human beings have become sinful. Cain killed his brother. Through his own labor, the human being has become sinful; he has fallen into the material world.

[ 10 ] The “reversed Adam” is Christ Jesus, who ascends once more. He must redeem this with his blood. This had to be accomplished once by a specific person. The bread and wine find their representation in the person of Christ, in his body and blood. The Lord himself must take upon himself the sin of Cain: “This is my body; this is my blood.”—Redemption must take place through the sanctification of that which is on earth. The wine represents this at the Lord’s Supper; through this, the blood is related to the wine.

[ 11 ] The Gospels are not merely doctrinal texts; they are also accounts of life. The narratives of the Gospels refer not only to external historical events but also to people’s inner experiences. Christian yoga is living oneself fully into the Gospel, as if it were one’s own inner life.

[ 12 ] Four things are absolutely necessary for Christian yoga to be possible at all. The first is simplicity. This is a Christian virtue. One must realize that, in life, one has many experiences that cause one to lose one’s impartiality. Almost everyone is biased. The only unbiased answers to questions are those given by children. But they are also foolish in this regard, because children do not yet know anything. One must, however, learn to be wise and unbiased—childlike in one’s approach to experience. In Christianity, this is called simplicity.

[ 13 ] The second virtue one must acquire is that, as a Christian mystic, one must shed what many people possess—namely, the inner sense of well-being derived from religious practices. One must no longer devote oneself to these practices for one’s own satisfaction, but because the path of practice requires it. All sense of well-being derived from religious practices must be set aside.

[ 14 ] The third virtue is even more difficult. It consists in absolutely refraining from attributing anything to one’s own ability. Instead, one must learn to attribute everything to divine power, to the merit of God, who works through us. Without this, one cannot become a Christian mystic.

[ 15 ] The fourth virtue is patient resignation to whatever may befall a person. One must cast aside all worries and fears and be prepared for everything—both the best and the worst.

[ 16 ] Unless one has developed such virtues to a certain degree, one cannot hope to become a Christian mystic. This preparation enables one to go through the seven stages of the Christian mystical path.

[ 17 ] The first step is the washing of the feet. Everyone must perform it. This is the fulfillment of the saying: “Whoever wants to be the Lord must be the servant of all.”—We must realize that we do not owe who we are to our own selves. We must take into account everything that other people and our environment have made of us, and seriously reflect on this. Then we will understand how we are connected to our entire surroundings. When we have gained strength through the four virtues: simplicity, renouncing the sense of well-being derived from religious practices, refraining from attributing our own competence to ourselves, and patient submission to everything that befalls us—then we will also gain the strength to carry out what is called the washing of feet: namely, to view with gratitude everything that has been given to us from without, everything that has uplifted us, and to bow before it. We must transform our entire attitude into pure gratitude toward those who have given us everything. Thus, we must kneel before those through whom we have come to be. Christ Jesus knelt before his disciples because, without them, he could not have become what he is. Christ Jesus presupposes the disciples just as the plant presupposes the mineral, and the animal presupposes the plant. He, who is the Lord, becomes the servant of all. When one learns to humble oneself to the point of feeling the deepest gratitude, then much of what is merely a social façade falls away, and we can then move on to the next stage.

[ 18 ] If we renounce external power, then we must have inner strength. When we have become the last, then we go to the Father. That is what “the path to the Father” means. We are then intimately connected to this primal power. This can only be found through our own experience. We must learn to endure every pain. This is the second stage, the scourging, the second stage in the Christian-mystical sense. Then the Self is self-reliant.

[ 19 ] Even higher is enduring contempt—the third stage. One must learn to endure the fact that one finds no respect at all among people. One must find all one’s strength in the higher life. This is bearing the crown of thorns. We must learn to stand tall when the world despises us and showers us with scorn.

[ 20 ] When a person has reached this point, he regards his own physicality as if it were someone else’s. He has humbled himself; he has learned to endure pain and to bear contempt. Now the body is something in which he no longer lives, but around which the soul hovers. This is the crucifixion, the fourth stage. It is succeeded by the stage that arises when one’s own body has become entirely objective, as if we were bound to a piece of wood belonging to someone else. Then, for us, the sense of being separate has ceased. This is the mystical death on the cross, the fifth stage.

[ 21 ] The sixth stage is reached when a person has become one with everything on Earth and embraces everything with their feelings, perceiving the entire Earth as their own body. This is the burial. With this, the human being has become what spiritual science calls oneness with the planet. He then feels that he is not a separate being. The human being can exist only on this Earth. A few hundred miles away from it, he would have to die, wither away, just as a hand withers when severed from the body. The Earth is then the human being’s body. We must be buried in it. From this state, the human being attains earth consciousness. Then follows the seventh stage, the Resurrection: the human being has become one who has been raised. This state can only be understood by one whose thinking is no longer bound to the physical instrument of the brain.

[ 22 ] A person can go through these seven stages if he repeatedly allows the Gospel of John—beginning with chapter 13—to take root within him: first, the washing of the feet, the path of the will to serve, of bowing down in complete humility; second, the scourging; third, the crowning with thorns; fourth, the crucifixion; fifth, the mystical death on the cross; sixth, the burial; seventh, the resurrection. These are the seven stages of the Christian inner mystery, which has been outwardly represented in the course of world history.

[ 23 ] Throughout their lives, the Christian monks repeatedly drew strength from these passages in Chapter 13 of the Gospel of John. That is where they drew their strength from.