The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The Gospel of John VII

[ 1 ] In a text such as the Gospel of John, everything is significant and important, and nothing could be expressed any differently than it is written there. Why, for example, does the Holy Spirit appear in the form of a dove? It would take a series of lectures to explain this. But one can at least get a glimpse of it if one views human evolution from a different perspective than has been done so far. In earlier lectures, the assertion—which is outrageous to a scientifically minded person—was already made that human beings were already present at the beginning of evolution and that they experienced Earth’s evolution as their own. However, it must of course not be forgotten that early humans were organized and constituted quite differently from those of today. Even the Atlantean human differed greatly in appearance from today’s human. This difference is even greater in the case of humans from the Lemurian era, and even greater still in the case of humans from the time when the Moon and Sun were still connected to our planet.

[ 2 ] To gain an understanding of how Spiritual Science views evolution, we must start with the most obvious point. Not all people living on Earth today are at the same stage of development. Alongside peoples who have reached a high level of civilization, there are indigenous peoples who lag far behind in terms of culture. A view has emerged in modern natural science—and it is held with great tenacity, even though recent facts contradict it—that the more highly developed peoples are descended from those who are less advanced in their development. This view does not correspond to the findings of spiritual research. Let us mention here, for example, the peoples who became known through the discovery of America, and briefly describe an episode that gives us insight into the spiritual life of these peoples. As is well known, the white settlers had driven the Native American population further and further into the interior of the country and had not kept their promise to give them land. A chief of these Native Americans once said to the leader of a European expedition: “You palefaces have taken our lands and promised to give us others. But the white man has not kept his word to the brown man, and we know why. The pale man has little signs in which magical beings dwell, and from them he seeks the truth. But what he learns is not the truth, for it is not good. The brown man does not seek the truth in such small magical signs. He hears the “Great Spirit” in the rustling of the forest, in the trickling of the stream. In the lightning and thunder, the “Great Spirit” reveals to him what is right and wrong.

[ 3 ] The American race represents a primitive indigenous population that has remained far, far behind, including in terms of religious worldview. Yet it has preserved its belief in a monotheistic spirit that speaks to it through all the sounds of nature. The Native American has such an intimate relationship with nature that he still hears the voice of the high creative spirit in all its manifestations, whereas the European is so steeped in materialistic culture that he can no longer perceive the voice of nature. Both peoples have the same origin; both descend from the population of Atlantis, which held a monotheistic faith arising from spiritual clairvoyance. But the Europeans have ascended to a higher cultural level, while the Native Americans have remained stagnant and have thus fallen into decadence. One must always bear this developmental process in mind. It can be illustrated as follows. Over the course of millennia, our planet changes, and this change also necessitates the development of humanity. The side branches that no longer fit into the circumstances become decadent. We thus have a straight trunk of development and branching side branches that decay (see diagram).

[ 4 ] Going back from the point in Atlantean times when Europeans and Native Americans were still united, we arrive at a time when the human body was still relatively soft, with a gelatinous consistency. There we see beings branching off and falling behind once more. These beings continue to develop, but along a descending line, and from them arises the ape species.

[ 5 ] We must not say that humans are descended from apes, but rather that both humans and apes are descended from a form that, however, had a completely different appearance from that of apes and modern humans. The divergence occurred at a point where this primordial form had the possibility, on the one hand, of ascending to become human and, on the other hand, of falling down to become a distorted image of the human. We shall pursue the theory of evolution only as far as is necessary to establish the connection with what has been said in earlier lectures. In the case of the ancient Atlantean people, the etheric body was still outside the physical body. Today, only the human astral body—specifically during sleep—is outside the physical body. Therefore, today humans are only able to overcome the fatigue of the physical body during sleep, because their astral body is outside the physical body and thus has the opportunity to act upon it. Further influences on the physical body are no longer possible. Only the remnants of such influence remain in phenomena such as blushing when ashamed, turning pale when frightened or startled, and so on. However, the further back we go into the Atlantean era and the more the etheric body was outside the physical body, the more it was able to exert a transforming influence on the physical body. The etheric body’s dominion over the physical body was so great in earlier times because the physical body was still much more pliable and supple than it is now. At a stage of human development when the physical body had only a delicate framework for the skeletal structure, the power of the etheric body over the physical body was so great that the human being had the ability to extend an arm or a hand at will, to extend fingers from it at will, and so on. Such things seem absurd to modern humans. It would be entirely incorrect to imagine the Lemurian human as being like today’s human. The Lemurian human did not walk on his limbs like a human of today; he was more or less an aerial being. All the organs of today’s human were present only in a rudimentary form; he was capable of metamorphosis. It is entirely incorrect to have a mental image of the Lemurian people as being similar to modern humans, even if grotesquely so. Even in the Atlantean era, the human body was still malleable and could be reshaped from within by the will. The reason for this was that the etheric body, as mentioned above, was still partially outside the physical body. Thus the etheric body worked on the outer form, and those beings who did not work on their bodies in the right way developed into what we today call apes. This is how these caricatures of modern humans came into being. They are descended from us, not we from them. One may raise the question here: Why did the apes in particular split off; why did a portion remain at a lower level as soulless beings—here the higher soul is meant, not the astral body? Different conditions simply arose. Human beings adapted to them, but the apes were unable to do so. Their physical bodies hardened, while human beings were able to keep their physical bodies soft and malleable.

[ 6 ] In the early stages of Earth's development, we must have in our mental image human beings as having a fine etheric body. They gradually transformed this body. A clairvoyant at that time would have perceived human beings as spheres. The diagram on page 243 is intended to illustrate the evolutionary tree.

[ 7 ] Quite late in the Atlantean epoch, the species that would later evolve into today’s apes branched off. Earlier in the Atlantean epoch, certain higher mammals branched off; certain lower mammals branched off during the earliest part of the Atlantean epoch. Physical man at that time was at the developmental level of a mammal; however, mammals remained at this stage, while man continued to evolve. In even earlier times, man was at the developmental level of a reptile. The body was quite different from that of a modern reptile, but the reptile emerged as its physical development fell into decline. Humanity developed its inner faculties, whereas the reptile lagged behind. It is a retarded brother of humanity. Even earlier, the lineage that became the bird species branched off. And even further back, humanity stood at the stage preserved in today’s fish species. At that time, nothing higher existed on Earth than complex fish forms. In ancient times, humanity stood at the level of an invertebrate animal. And branching off in the most ancient times, and thus arriving in our own time, is the single-celled organism that Haeckel calls Monera, which represents a brother of humankind that branched off in the most ancient times. If we construct the human family tree from this evolutionary series, it will correspond exactly with the family tree that Haeckel established in his writings:

[ 8 ] We could just as easily adopt Haeckel’s evolutionary tree; the only difference is that Haeckel posits that animal forms arise first and then evolve up to humans, whereas we see humans as the original form and regard the animal world merely as a branch, as degenerate humans. In fact, humans are the firstborn of the Earth; they have evolved in a straight line, leaving the other beings behind at the various stages.

[ 9 ] If we consider the point in time when birds and reptiles diverged, we see that physical human forms did indeed exist at that time, some resembling the later bird species and others resembling the later reptiles. The seer looks back to that distant time when the spiritual essence of man had not yet taken possession of his body. He sees the group soul of man hovering around the bird-like body. Here remained those spiritual beings who had no need to descend into the physical plane. After they had come down to this level of the physical world, they developed upward again toward the spiritual. These are beings of the astral plane, the world of the Holy Spirit, who have preserved the air sphere as their realm, just as humanity takes possession of the physical earth, the earth sphere, as its realm. One must also create a mental image of these beings in bird form when they are to make themselves physically visible to us. Hence, the writer of the Gospel of John must depict the Holy Spirit, which descends into the conscious soul of Jesus and fills it as the Spirit-Self, under the symbol of a dove. This symbol appears to us with wondrous depth when we consider it in the context of human development.

[ 10 ] Let us now relate what is written in the Gospel of John to the development of humanity on Earth from yet another perspective. In doing so, we shall briefly recapitulate a mental image from the Rosicrucian School. At a certain stage of development, the student is told something like the following: Let us consider the plant in relation to the human being. The plant directs its roots downward, toward the center of the Earth, the seat of its I. It turns its reproductive organs chastely toward the sun, toward the light. In the light of the sun, it opens its blossom and allows the fruit to ripen. This fertilizing effect of the light is called, in esoteric science, the touch of the sun’s sacred lance of love. It draws forth the blossom and brings about the fertility of the earth. What the plant sinks into the earth—the root—corresponds to the head of the human being. Man turns his head toward the sun, toward the light. And what the plant turns toward the light—the reproductive organs—he modestly turns toward the earth. Man is the inverted image of the plant. The animal stands midway between the two. The plant is depicted vertically, oriented toward the earth; man, likewise vertically, turned away from the earth; the animal horizontally. Thus the form of the cross is obtained. Plato expresses this by saying: The world soul is crucified on the ancient world cross. — The cross is a cosmic symbol, set within the development of the worlds. Deep shivers ran through the student’s breast when he could thus look into the unfolding of world development. Thus we also see in the plant a brotherly being from the distant past. Originally, man too was an ethereal being of plant substance. At that time, man possessed the material nature that the plant still possesses today. Had man not transformed the plant substance into flesh, he would have remained chaste and pure like the plant. He would not have known desire and passion. But this state could not be maintained, for then human beings would not have awakened to self-consciousness. They would have remained forever in the dream life in which plants still exist today. Human beings had to be permeated by desires and passions; they had to be brought into a physical existence. Not all organs were transformed from plant to flesh substance at the same time. The organs that express the lowest instincts were the last to be incorporated into the development of the physical body. And they are already in a state of decay. The reproductive organs have retained their plant-like character the longest. Ancient legends and myths still tell us of hermaphrodites; these were beings who possessed no sexual organs of flesh and blood, but rather ones of plant substance. Some believe that the fig leaf worn by the first humans in Paradise was an expression of shame. No, this story preserves the memory that humans once had reproductive organs of a plant nature instead of flesh-and-blood ones. And now a glimpse into the future: What are still low organs in the human body today—what was incorporated into the physical body last of all—will also be the first to fall away, disappear, and wither from the human body. Humanity will not remain at its present stage. Just as it descended from the pure chastity of the plant into the sensuality of the world of desires, so will it ascend again from this with a pure, purified substance to a chaste state.

[ 11 ] Certain organs of the human body are in a state of decay, others have reached the peak of their developmental capacity; still others are only at the beginning of their development. The former include the reproductive organs; the latter include the brain; and those that are still in the embryonic stage include the heart, the larynx, and everything related to the formation of speech. From these will emerge organs that will replace the reproductive organs in their functions and far surpass them. They will become, in the highest sense, voluntary organs. When human beings create forms in the air through speech and, in the future, the word will have a creative effect, then humanity will have returned to that chastity which the plant has preserved; but it will be a conscious chastity. For the esoteric researcher, the heart, too, is only at the beginning of its development. It is not that pump which materialistic thinkers portray it to be. The belief that the heart is the cause of blood circulation is a mistaken one. As horrifying as it may sound: the movement of the heart is the consequence of blood circulation. In the future, when humanity has reached a higher stage of development, the heart too will be subject to its conscious will. The predisposition for this already exists, namely the striated structure that the heart exhibits, just like all voluntary muscles. Then humanity will consciously create its own kind through the Word; then human substance will be chaste and purified. What was once stretched toward the sun as a plant calyx at a lower level, what received the sunbeam as an arrow of love, will be turned back toward the cosmos at the higher level of future humanity as a chalice fertilized by the spiritual. This is represented in the Holy Grail, the luminous chalice, the attainment of which was the sublime goal envisioned by the knight of the Middle Ages.

[ 12 ] Let us now consider the plant and its relationship to the earth. The plant has only a physical and an etheric body; therefore, the plant is capable of only the kind of consciousness that a human being has during sleep. While the animal has a group consciousness, the consciousness of the plant is concentrated at the center of the Earth. Plants are so connected to the Earth that they can be regarded as parts of it. It is not the individual plants that have an astral body, but rather they are embedded in the Earth’s astral body. The Earth’s astral body is in mutual relationship with that of the Sun. We also find a process similar to the alternation of sleep and waking consciousness in humans within the higher organism of the Earth. As a result, plants sprout in summer; they germinate, grow, and bloom toward the sun. In winter, the astral body of the sun withdraws from the Earth. The astral body of the Earth is left to its own devices; it withdraws into the center of the Earth; vegetation on Earth rests. The seer can observe this relationship between the two astral bodies with great precision. Because this withdrawal of the astral body results in a standstill in vegetation and in life activity, and thus also in an interruption of consciousness, human beings had to acquire their own astral body in the course of their evolution, for only in this way could they attain continuous consciousness.

[ 13 ] While we have so far considered the significance of Christ for human development, let us now turn to an examination of the significance of this spirit for cosmic development. The beings who, at the very beginning of Earth’s evolution, had already attained that state of perfection which humanity will only reach at the end of Earth’s evolution, have their abode in the Sun. Christ, as a cosmic force, belongs to these beings. Thus, at the beginning of our present Earth evolution, his astral body was connected to the astral body of the Sun. He had his abode in the Sun. With the appearance of the Christ on Earth, the astral body of this cosmic force of the Christ Spirit simultaneously descended to Earth, and since then his astral body has remained in constant connection with the astral body of the Earth. Through the appearance of the Christ on Earth, the astral body of the Earth received a completely new substance from that of the Sun. Anyone who, at the time of Christ, had looked down upon the Earth from another planet would have perceived the addition of this new substance to the Earth’s astral body through the change in the color radiation of that astral body. Through the connection of his astral body with that of the Earth, the Sun Spirit Christ simultaneously became the Earth Spirit. The Christ Spirit is both Sun Spirit and Earth Spirit. From the moment Christ walked upon the Earth, he has remained in constant connection with the Earth. He has become the planetary spirit of the Earth; the Earth is his body, and he guides the Earth’s evolution. This connection was established on Golgotha, and the Mystery of Golgotha is the symbol of what took place for the Earth’s evolution at that time.

[ 14 ] Four main races share possession of the Earth's surface: the white, yellow, red, and black races. The air sphere, however, which surrounds the Earth on all sides, is a unified whole. This is alluded to in chapter 19:23: “But the soldiers, having crucified Jesus, took his garments and made four parts of them, one part for each soldier, and also the tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.” The garments of Christ are the symbol of the Earth’s surface, whereas the tunic, woven in one piece, symbolizes the atmosphere, which spans the Earth on all sides, undivided and indivisible. It must, however, be emphasized once more that this symbol is also, at the same time, a historical fact. In light of this, the following saying of the Master also becomes understandable. He says: “Whoever eats my bread tramples me underfoot” (13:18). If Christ is the planetary spirit, if the earth is his body, is it not justified to say that people eat his flesh and drink his blood and trample him underfoot? If this Spirit points to the fruits obtained from the earth, can He not say, “This is my body,” and, pointing to the pure plant juices, “This is my blood”? (6:56.) And do not people walk about on the body of this planetary Spirit by trampling Him underfoot? He did not say this in a negative sense, but to point to the fact that the Earth is the true body of Christ. This passage of the Gospel, too, is to be taken literally. And the memory of this great truth is to be kept alive for posterity through the Mystery of the Lord’s Supper. Only those who are able to sense the value of this momentous event for the entire cosmic development can truly appreciate the profound meaning of the Lord’s Supper. They see the power of Christ sprouting in the plants that the Earth sends forth toward the light of the sun in spring; they know that the Incarnation of Christ is not merely a human event, but a cosmic event.