The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] It should have become reasonably clear from the three lectures given so far that one is able to rediscover the spiritual-scientific truths in the Gospel of John. But it should also have become clear that, in order to find these truths, it is necessary to truly weigh every word of this Gospel of John on a gold scale. With this religious text, it is indeed essential that the actual, authentic wording be understood absolutely. For everything in this text—as we shall yet see in various instances—is of the deepest possible significance. But it is not only the wording of this or that sentence that matters; there is also something else to consider. That is the structure, the composition, the organization of the text. Modern people no longer have quite the right sensibility for such things. The ancient—if we may call them that—writers incorporated far more architectural structure and inner organization into their works than is commonly believed. One need only recall a relatively late poet to find this confirmed: Dante. How architecturally structured is everything in the Divine Comedy, organized into sections based on the number three. And it is no coincidence that every part of Dante’s Divine Comedy concludes with the word “stars.” This is merely to illustrate how architecturally the ancient writers structured their works. And in particular, when it comes to the great religious texts, we must never lose sight of this architectural structure, for it can, under certain circumstances, mean a great deal. One must, however, first discover this meaning.

[ 2 ] It is worth noting that at the end of Chapter 10 of the Gospel of John there is a sentence that we should keep in mind. Verse 41 reads:

“And many came to him and said, ‘John performed no sign, but everything John said about this man is true.’”

[ 3 ] In other words, in this verse of chapter 10 we find an indication that the testimony given by John concerning Jesus Christ is true; a specific word is used to express that this testimony is true. - And now we come to the end of the Gospel of John and find a corresponding verse there. It says in verse 24 of chapter 21:

“This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written this; and we know that his testimony is true.”

[ 4 ] So, at the end of it all, we have an indication that the testimony of the one who is reporting is a truthful one. Such correspondences and harmonies—where a single word here or there conveys something special—are never without significance in the ancient writings; and it is precisely behind this correspondence that something significant lies hidden. And we will place our reflections in the proper light when we point to its basis.

[ 5 ] At the center of the Gospel of John lies a fact without an understanding of which the Gospel of John cannot be comprehended at all. Immediately following the passage where this word is cited to affirm the testimony of truth comes the chapter on the raising of Lazarus. This chapter on the raising of Lazarus divides the entire Gospel of John into two parts. And at the end of the first part, it is pointed out that for everything that is asserted and is to be affirmed concerning Jesus Christ, the testimony of John the Baptist is to be accepted; and it is pointed out at the very end that for everything that follows the chapter on the raising of Lazarus, the testimony of the disciple—of whom we often hear the words, “whom the Lord loved” (13:23)—is to be accepted. What, then, does the “raising of Lazarus” actually mean?

[ 6 ] I would like to remind you that, following the account of the raising of Lazarus, there is a seemingly puzzling sentence in the Gospel of John. Just imagine the whole situation: Jesus Christ performs what is commonly called a miracle, but in the Gospel itself is called a “sign”: the raising of Lazarus. And afterward there are several sentences that state: “This man is performing many signs” (11:47), and everything that follows indicates that the accusers do not want to have anything to do with him because of these signs. When you read these words—however they may be translated—as I have already pointed out in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact—you must ask: What is actually underlying this? It is precisely the raising of a man that prompts the opponents to take a stand against Christ Jesus. Why does the raising of Lazarus particularly upset the opponents? Why does the persecution begin precisely at this point? — Anyone who can read must realize that a mystery is hidden in this chapter. This mystery, which lies behind it, is nothing other than the revelation of who the true author of the Gospel of John actually is, who is actually saying everything that is said in the Gospel of John. To understand this, we must take a look at what we call “initiation” in the ancient mysteries. How did this initiation take place in the ancient mysteries?

[ 7 ] A person who had been initiated could have personal experiences in the spiritual worlds, enabling them to become a witness to those realms. Those deemed ready for initiation were drawn into these mysteries. Everywhere—in Greece, among the Chaldeans, among the Egyptians, among the Indians—such mysteries existed. There, those to be initiated were taught at length about the things we learn today in spiritual science; and when they had been sufficiently instructed, what followed opened the way for them to see for themselves. But in ancient times, this could be brought about in no other way than by placing the human being—in regard to his four members: the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I—into a very special state. What happened to the initiate was that, through the initiator—who understood the process—he was placed in a death-like state for three and a half days. This was done for the following reason. For when a human being sleeps in the ordinary sense during the present cycle of evolution, his physical body and etheric body lie in bed, while the “I,” together with the astral body, is lifted out. The human being cannot then perceive any spiritual events around him because his astral body does not yet possess the spiritual sense organs necessary to perceive in the world in which he then finds himself. Only when their astral body and their I slip back into their physical and etheric bodies, once again making use of their eyes and ears, do people once more perceive the physical world—that is, their surroundings in general. Through what the initiates had learned, they became capable of developing the spiritual sense organs of their astral bodies. Once they had reached the point where their astral body had developed these sensory organs, it was necessary to ensure that everything the astral body had taken in was imprinted upon the etheric body, just as the words of a seal are imprinted upon sealing wax. That is what matters most. All preparations for initiation were based on the human being surrendering to such inner processes that reorganized his astral body. In terms of his physical body as well, the human being was once such that he had no eyes or ears as we do today, but rather rudimentary organs in their place—just as animals that have never been exposed to light have no eyes. Light shapes the eye; sound shapes the ear. What a person practices through meditation and concentration—and what they experience inwardly as a result—acts like light on the eye and sound on the ear. Through this, the astral body is transformed, and the organs of perception are brought forth to see into the astral, the higher world. At present, however, they are not yet firmly enough established in the etheric body; they become firm when what first takes shape in the astral body is imprinted upon the etheric body. But as long as the etheric body remains within the physical body, it is not possible for what is achieved through the exercises to be truly imprinted upon the etheric body. For this to happen, the etheric body had to be lifted out of the physical body. Thus, when the etheric body was lifted out of the physical body during the three and a half days of death-like sleep, everything that had been prepared in the astral body was imprinted. The person experienced the spiritual world. When he was then called back into the physical body by the priest-initiator, he became a witness to what takes place in the spiritual worlds through his own testimony.

[ 8 ] This procedure has now become unnecessary precisely because of the coming of Christ Jesus. This three-and-a-half-day-long, death-like sleep can now be replaced by the power emanating from Christ. For we shall soon see that the Gospel of John contains the powerful forces that enable the astral body today—even when the etheric body is within the physical body—to have the strength to imprint what had previously been prepared within it. But for this to happen, Christ Jesus first had to be present. Previously, human beings were not advanced enough that, without the prescribed procedure, what had been preformed in the astral body through meditation and concentration could have been imprinted in the etheric body. — This was a process that often took place in the mysteries: A person to be initiated is put into a death-like sleep by the priest-initiator; the person is then guided through the higher worlds; afterward, the priest-initiator calls the person back into their physical body, and from that point on, through their own experience, they become a witness to the spiritual worlds.

[ 9 ] This was always carried out in the deepest secrecy, and the outside world knew nothing of what took place in the ancient mysteries. Through Christ Jesus, a new initiation was to take the place of the old one, brought about by those forces of which we are yet to speak. It was, as it were, to mark the end of the old form of initiation. But a transition was to be made from the old to the new era! For this transition, someone was to be initiated once more in the old manner—but into Christian esotericism. Only Christ Jesus himself could do this—and the one to be initiated was to be the one called Lazarus. “This sickness is not unto death” (11:4), it says there; it is the three-and-a-half-day death-like sleep. This is clearly pointed out. You will see that although it occurs in a highly veiled account, it nevertheless presents itself as an initiation to those who are able to decipher such veiled language at all.

[ 10 ] Lazarus’s individuality was to be initiated in such a way that he could become a witness to the spiritual worlds. And we are told a phrase that is very significant in the language of the mysteries: we are told, “that the Lord loved Lazarus.” What does “to love” mean in the language of the mysteries? It expresses the relationship between the disciple and the teacher. “The one whom the Lord loved” is the most intimate, the most initiated disciple. Lazarus was initiated by the Lord Himself, and as an initiate, Lazarus rose from the grave—that is, from his place of initiation. And the same phrase, “whom the Lord loved,” is repeated to us later by John—or rather, by the author of the Gospel of John; for the name “John” is not mentioned—it is precisely the one who is the Beloved Disciple, and to whom the Gospel of John is attributed. This is the resurrected Lazarus himself. And the writer of the Gospel of John meant to say: What I have to say, I have to say by virtue of the initiation bestowed upon me by the Lord himself. - That is why the author of the Gospel of John clearly distinguishes between what happened before the raising of Lazarus and what happened after it. Before the raising of Lazarus, an elderly initiate is introduced—one who has come to the knowledge of the Spirit—and it is emphasized that his testimony is true. — But as for what must be said about the deepest things—about the Mystery of Palestine—I myself, the one who was raised, will speak of this; yet I can speak of it only after the raising. — Therefore, in the first part of the Gospel of John we have the testimony of the old John, and in the second part the testimony of the new John, whom the Lord Himself has initiated. For he is none other than the raised Lazarus. Only then do we grasp the true meaning of this chapter. It is there because John wanted to say: I rely on my supersensible vision, not on my perceptions in the physical world; I am telling you what I have seen in the spiritual world through the initiation the Lord has bestowed upon me. .

[ 11 ] Thus, we must trace the character of Christ Jesus, as presented to us in the first chapters of the Gospel of John up to the end of chapter 10, back to the understanding that, so to speak, even someone who had not yet been initiated in the deepest sense by Christ Jesus himself could have had.

[ 12 ] Now you will say: Yes, we ourselves have heard in these lectures the profound words about Christ Jesus as the incarnate Logos, as the Light of the World, and so on. — It is not surprising that these profound words about Christ Jesus are already spoken in the first chapters. For in the ancient mysteries, Christ Jesus—that is, the Christ who was to appear in the world in the future—was by no means an unknown entity. And all the mysteries pointed to the One who was to come. That is why the ancient initiates are called “prophets,” because they were to prophesy about the future. That is why the initiations specifically had the purpose of making it clear that the Christ would reveal Himself in the future of humanity. Thus, from what he was already able to know at that time, the truth emerged for John the Baptist that enabled him to prophesy that the One of whom it had been spoken in the Mysteries stood before him in Christ Jesus.

[ 13 ] How all of this fits together, and what the so-called Baptist’s own stance is toward Christ Jesus, will become clearest to us when we answer two questions.

[ 14 ] One is this: How does John the Baptist position himself within his own time? And the other goes back to the explanation of various things at the beginning of the Gospel of John.

[ 15 ] How does John the Baptist fit into his time? Who is John the Baptist, really? He is one who—just like the others who heard something during the initiations—received a hint about the coming Christ, but who is presented as the only one to whom the true mystery is revealed in the presence of Christ Jesus: that the One who has appeared is indeed the Christ. Now, those who were called “Pharisees” or by other names saw in Christ Jesus someone who actually ran counter to their old principle of initiation, someone who, in their eyes, did something they could not accept in their conservative mindset. Because they were conservative, they said: We must stick to the old principle of initiation! — And this contradiction—always speaking of the future Christ but never allowing the moment to come when he is truly present—is precisely what underlies their conservatism. Therefore, when Christ Jesus initiated Lazarus, they had to regard it as a break with the old mystery tradition. “This man performs many signs!” We cannot have fellowship with him! — In their view, he betrayed the mysteries, making public what should have remained enclosed in the depths of the mysteries. And now we understand that this was like a betrayal to them and appeared to be the reason they had to oppose him. Thus begins the turnaround, the persecution of Christ Jesus.

[ 16 ] How is John the Baptist portrayed in the first chapters of the Gospel of John?

[ 17 ] First, as one who knows the mystery of the truth about the Christ who was to come very well—so well, in fact, that the writer of the Gospel of John himself can repeat all of this, which John the Baptist must also have known, as he became convinced through what we are about to learn.

[ 18 ] We have seen what the very first words of the Gospel of John mean. Let us now consider briefly what is said about John the Baptist himself. But let us review it once more in as accurate a translation as possible. So far, we have heard only the first few words.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
And the light shone in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
He came as a witness to bear witness to the light, so that through him all might believe.
He was not the light, but a witness to the light.
For the true light, which enlightens every person, was to come into the world.
It was in the world, and the world was made through it, but the world did not recognize it.
It came to individual people (it came even to the “I”-people); but the individual people (the “I”-people) did not receive it.
But those who did receive him were able, through him, to be revealed as children of God.
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.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have heard his teaching—the teaching of the Father’s only Son, full of devotion and truth.
John bears witness to him and proclaims clearly: “This was the one of whom I said, ‘After me comes the one who was before me.’ For he is my predecessor.
For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
For the Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God with his own eyes. The only Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (1:1–18)

[ 19 ] These are the words that roughly convey the meaning of these first sentences of the Gospel of John. Before we proceed to explain them, we must add one more thing. How does John describe himself? — You will recall that messengers were sent to find out who John the Baptist was. Priests and Levites came to ask him who he was. We will see later why the preceding answer was given. For now, let us simply consider what he himself says. He said:

“I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” (1:23)

[ 20 ] These are the words that are written there. “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness!” It says “in the wilderness”—quite literally—ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ. In Greek, the word “hermit” means “the solitary one.” Now you will understand that it is more accurate to say, “I am the voice of one crying out in solitude”—rather than, “I am the voice of a preacher in the wilderness.” And we will better understand everything stated in the opening words of the Gospel of John if we keep this self-description of John in mind. Why does he call himself “the voice of one crying out in the wilderness”?

[ 21 ] In the course of human development, we have seen that the true mission of Earth is the development of love, but that this is conceivable only if it is given as a voluntary gift by self-aware human beings, and that human beings gradually conquer their “I,” and that the “I” slowly and gradually sinks into human nature. We know that animals, as such, do not possess an individual “I.” If an individual lion could say “I,” this would not refer to the individual animal, but to the group “I” in the astral world; all lions would then say “I.” Thus, entire groups of animals of the same kind say “I” to the group “I” that is supernaturally perceptible in the astral world. This is humanity’s great advantage over animals: that human beings possess an individual “I.” But the individual “I” develops only gradually. Human beings, too, began with a group “I”—an “I” that belonged to an entire group of people.

[ 22 ] If you were to go back to ancient peoples, to ancient races, you would find everywhere that people originally formed small groups. With the Germanic peoples, you wouldn’t even have to go very far back. In the writings of Tacitus, it is abundantly clear that the individual Germanic person values his entire tribe more than his own individuality. The individual feels more as a member of the Cherusci tribe or the Sigambri tribe than as a single personality, and therefore the individual also stands up for the fate of the entire tribe; it makes no difference who from the tribe avenges an insult when an insult has been inflicted on an individual member or on the tribe. Then, over time, individual people begin to step outside the tribal bond, so that the tribes are broken up and no longer remain cohesive. Human beings have also developed from the group soul character and have gradually elevated themselves to the point of perceiving the “I” within the individual personality.

[ 23 ] We can understand certain things—especially religious texts—only if we are aware of this mystery of group souls and group selves. Among peoples who had already attained a certain awareness of their own “I,” there still existed an “I” that extended not only across spatial groups living simultaneously but also across groups across time. Today, human memory is such that the individual remembers only his or her own youth. But there was a time when a different kind of memory existed, when a person not only remembered his or her own deeds but also remembered the deeds of his or her father and grandfather as if they were his or her own. Memory reached far back into the bloodline of the ancestors, all the way to the progenitor, whose blood flowed down through the generations. For centuries, memory was preserved along with the blood, and a grandson or a descendant of a clan would say “I” in reference to the deeds and thoughts of his ancestors just as he would to himself. One did not feel confined between birth and death, but rather saw oneself as a link in the chain of generations, with the ancestor at its center. For this is the cohesion of the “I”—that one remembered the deeds of one’s father, grandfather, and so on. In ancient times, this was already expressed outwardly through the naming of children. The son remembered not only his own deeds, but also those of his father, grandfather, and so on. Memory stretched far back through the generations. Everything that memory thus encompassed was called, in ancient times, for example, “Noah” or “Adam.” This refers not to individual human beings, but to the “I’s” that preserved memory for centuries. This mystery is also hidden behind the names of the patriarchs. Why did the patriarchs live so long? In ancient times, it would never have occurred to anyone to give a name to the individual human being who exists between birth and death. Adam was preserved in memory for centuries because the limitations of space and time were simply not a consideration in the ancient naming system.

[ 24 ] Thus, little by little, the individual human self gradually separated from the group soul, from the group self; the human being gradually became aware of his or her individual self. Previously, he had felt his “I” within his tribal affiliation, within the group of people to whom he was related by blood, either in space or in time; hence the saying: “I and Father Abraham are one!”—that is to say, we are one. And there the individual felt secure within a whole, because the common blood flowed through all the veins, through all the members of the people in question. But evolution moved forward: The time came when, precisely within these peoples, human beings were to perceive their individual “I.”

[ 25 ] Christ’s mission was to give people what they needed to feel secure and grounded in their unique, individual selves. We must also understand the words that are so easily misunderstood: “Whoever does not renounce his wife and children, father and mother, brother and sister, cannot be my disciple!” (Mark 10:29). We must not take this in the trivial sense that someone is being instructed to run away from their family; rather, it means: You should feel that each of you is a unique self and that this unique self is directly one with the spiritual Father who floods through the world. In the past, the Old Testament prophet said: “I and Father Abraham are one,” because the self felt secure in the bond of blood. Now, the sense of oneness with the spiritual Father should become free. No longer should the bond of blood be the guarantee that a person belongs to a whole, but rather the knowledge of the purely spiritual Father principle, with which all are one.

[ 26 ] Thus, the Gospel of John tells us that Christ is the great source of inspiration for what human beings need in order to feel eternally at home in their own individual selves. This is the shift from the old covenant to the new covenant: the old covenant always has something of a group-soul character, in which the individual “I” feels united with the other “I’s” and does not truly feel itself or the other “I’s,” but instead empathizes with that in which they are all collectively sheltered—the national “I” or tribal “I.”

[ 27 ] How, then, must a “self” have felt that had matured to the point of no longer sensing a connection with the other individual personalities of the group soul? How must that isolated “I” have felt at a time when one could say: “Gone are the days when one could experience, as a true human reality, a sense of belonging with other people, with all the ‘I’s that belong to a group soul’; but the one must yet come who will give the soul the spiritual bread of life, through which the individual ‘I’ receives its nourishment.” The individual “I” must have felt lonely, and the forerunner of Christ had to say: “I am an ‘I’ that has emerged, that feels lonely. And precisely because I have learned to feel lonely, I feel myself to be a prophet to whom the ‘I’ in solitude provides the proper spiritual nourishment.” — That is why the herald had to describe himself as a voice crying out in the wilderness—that is, as the “I” that has already been set apart, isolated by the group soul, crying out for that through which the individual “I” can be nourished. “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.” Here we hear once again the profound truth: Every individual human “I” is entirely on its own; I am the voice of the “I” that is detached and that seeks the foundation upon which it can stand as a detached “I.” Now we understand the passage: “I am the voice of a crier in the wilderness.”

[ 28 ] To understand the exact words of the Gospel of John, we need to familiarize ourselves a little with the way names and designations were given back then. Naming back then was not as abstract and meaningless as it is today. And if interpreters of the biblical texts would only give a little thought to how much is conveyed by them, then many trivial interpretations would never see the light of day. I have already pointed out that when Christ says, “I am the light of the world” (8:12), what is really meant is that he was the first to give expression and impetus to the “I am.” Therefore, wherever the “I am” appears in the first chapters, this “I am” must be emphasized very particularly. All names and designations in ancient times are, in a certain sense, entirely real and at the same time used in a deeply symbolic way.

[ 29 ] People often make serious mistakes in two areas here. At first glance, some might say: Yes, according to such a view, much of it is meant symbolically, and we won’t go along with such an interpretation, where everything is supposed to be merely symbolic—because then you’re simply dismissing the historical biblical events! And those who understand absolutely nothing about the historical events might say: It’s all just meant symbolically. — But those who speak this way simply understand nothing of the Gospel. It is not historical reality that is denied by a symbolic explanation; rather, it must be emphasized that the esoteric explanation encompasses both: the understanding of the facts as historical, and, because they are historical, they themselves simultaneously signify what we attribute to them. Of course, anyone who sees only the crude, external facts—namely, a person born somewhere at a certain time—will not grasp that this person is something more than merely a human being with a particular name, whose biography one can write. But anyone who knows the spiritual context will come to understand that the person born in a specific place is, in addition, a symbol of his time, and that his name expresses his entire significance for the development of humanity.

[ 30 ] Both symbolic and historical—not just one or the other—that is what the true interpretation of the Gospels is all about. And so we will see in almost all events and references that John—or the writer of the Gospel of John, who actually perceives through supernatural insights—simultaneously sees both the events and the revelation of deeper spiritual truths: He has the historical figure of the Baptist in mind; he looks to the historical figure; but at the same time, the actual historical figure is also for him the symbol of all those who were already called in ancient times to imprint the “I” upon themselves, but who were only on the path toward this—those into whose individual “I” the Light of the World could shine—not, however, for those who were not yet able to comprehend the Light of the World in their darkness. That which appeared as life, as light, and as Logos in Christ Jesus has always shone in the world; but those who were still in the process of maturing did not recognize it. The light was always there. For if the light had not been there, the capacity for the “I” could never have arisen at all. Even on the Moon, the only aspects present in today’s human being were the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body; there was no “I” within them. Only because the Light transformed itself in the way it shines on Earth did it have the power to kindle the individual “I”s and gradually bring them to maturity: “The light shone in the darkness; but the darkness could not yet comprehend it” (1:5). “It came into individual human beings”—it came to the “I-beings”; for the “I-beings” could never have come into being if it had not been poured into them through the Logos. “But the ‘I-beings’ did not receive it.” Only a few received it—the initiates; they ascended to the spiritual worlds; they were always called “children of God,” because they had knowledge of the Logos, of the Light and Life, and were always able to bear witness to it. It was a few individuals who had always known of the spiritual worlds through the ancient mysteries. What, then, lived within them? What lived within them was that which is eternal in the human being. It lived within them quite consciously. Even before the great words, “I and the Father are one” (10:30), they already sensed: “I and the great Source are one!” And the deepest thing they carried in their consciousness—their own “I”—they did not receive from their father and mother, but rather through initiation into the spiritual world. Not from blood, nor from the flesh, nor from the will of a father or mother, but “from God”—that is, from the spiritual world—they had received it. - There you have the explanation of the words: that the great majority of people, even though they already possessed the potential to become “I-beings,” did not receive the light—that it did indeed descend as far as the group “I,” but that the individuals did not receive it. Those who did receive it—and they were few—were able, through it, to become children of God; but those who trusted Him became children of God through initiation. This gives us a clear picture. However, so that all people with earthly senses could recognize the God who exists, He had to appear on Earth in such a way that He could be seen with physical eyes—that is, He had to take on a physical form, because such a form can only be seen with physical eyes. In the past, only those initiated into the mysteries could see him; but now, for the salvation of all, he had taken on a physical form: “The Word, or the Logos, had become flesh” (1:14). Thus, the author of the Gospel of John links the historical appearance of Christ Jesus to the entire course of evolution. “We have heard his teaching, the teaching of the only-begotten Son of the Father” (1:14). What kind of teaching is this? What, then, are the other human beings born to be?

[ 31 ] In ancient times, when the Gospels were written, those who were born of the flesh were called “born twice.” They were called born twice, let us say, through the mixing of the blood of the father and mother. That which is not born of the flesh and did not come into being through human agency or through the mingling of blood is “born of God”; that is “born of the Spirit.” Those who were formerly called “children of God” have always been, in a certain sense, the “born of the Spirit”; and the doctrine of the Son of God is the doctrine of the “born of the Spirit” . The physical human being is the “twice-born”; the spiritual human being is the “born-of-God.” You must not interpret this as meaning “born into”—no, “born-of-God” is the opposite of “twice-born.” And the Word points to the fact that, in addition to physical birth, a person can also undergo a spiritual birth—namely, union with the Spirit, the birth through which he becomes “born-in,” a child or son of the Deity. And such a teaching—it could only be heard through the One who embodied the Word made flesh. Through him, the teaching became universal: “the teaching of the only-begotten Son of the Father, filled with devotion and truth” (1:14). “Devotion” must be better translated here, because although it involves being born forth from the Godhead, it also involves remaining united with it and, at the same time, the removal of all illusion. The latter arises solely from being born of two natures and envelops human beings in sensory illusions, in contrast to this one teaching, which brings the truth in Christ Jesus, as he stood and dwelt among human beings as the incarnate Logos. John, however, called himself—this is the literal meaning—the forerunner, the predecessor, the one who goes before to proclaim the “I.” John describes himself as the one who, while knowing that this “I” must become independent within the individual, was nevertheless called to bear witness to the one who is to come to bring this about. He said clearly: “The one who is to come is the ‘I Am,’ who is eternal, who can truly say of himself: ‘Before Abraham was, I Am.’” John could say: The “I” spoken of here existed before me; even though I am his predecessor, he is at the same time my predecessor; I bear witness to what was in every human being from the beginning; “After me comes the one who was before me” (1:15).

[ 32 ] And now some significant words are spoken: “For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace” (1:16). There are many people who call themselves Christians and who skim over the word “fullness,” without giving it much thought. “Pleroma” means “fullness” in Greek. This is also found in the Gospel of John: “For from the Pleroma we have all received grace upon grace!” I said that every word of the Gospel of John must be weighed on a golden scale if one is to understand it at all. What, then, is Pleroma, this fullness? Only those who know that in the ancient mysteries the Pleroma—or “fullness”—was spoken of as something very specific can understand it. For even back then, the teaching was held that when those spiritual beings who had ascended to divinity during the Age of the Old Moon—the Elohim—first revealed themselves, one of them separated from the others: One remained on the Moon and radiated the power of love from there until humanity was sufficiently mature for the light of the remaining six Elohim. Thus a distinction was made between Yahweh, the singular God, the Reflector, and the sixfold fullness of the Godhead, the “Pleroma.” But since the collective consciousness of the Solar Logos is what is meant by Christ, when referring to him, one had to speak of the fullness of the gods. This profound truth lies behind it: “For from the Pleroma we have all received grace upon grace.”

[ 33 ] Now let us continue by transporting ourselves back to the era of the group soul, when the individual experienced his or her “I” as a group “I.” Let us now consider what constituted the social order within the group. After all, insofar as they were visible human beings, people lived as individuals. Although they felt the group “I,” to their senses they were individuals. Since they did not yet feel themselves as individuals, they could not yet possess love to its fullest extent within themselves. One person loves another because they are blood relatives. Blood kinship is the foundation of all love. Blood relatives loved one another first, and love also arises from blood kinship, insofar as it is not sexual love. Human beings are to free themselves more and more from this group-soul love and offer love as a free gift of the “I.” At the end of Earth’s evolution, human beings will reach a point where a time will come in which the now-autonomous “I,” in its innermost being and out of complete devotion, has the impulse to do what is right and good. Because the “I” has this impulse, it does what is right; it does what is good. When love is so spiritualized that no one will desire anything other than to do what is right, then what Christ Jesus sought to bring into the world will be fulfilled. For this is one of the mysteries of Christianity: it teaches, “Look to Christ, fill yourselves with the power of his being, strive to become like him, to follow in his footsteps; then your liberated “I” will become such that it needs no law, that, as a being free in its innermost being, it does what is good and right. Thus, Christ is the source of the impulse toward freedom from the law, so that what is good is done not because of the law, but as an impulse of the love that lives within.

[ 34 ] However, this impulse will still require the remainder of Earth’s history to fully develop. The beginning of this process was initiated by Christ Jesus, and the figure of Christ will always be the force that guides humanity toward this end. As long as human beings were not mature enough to receive an independent “I,” as long as they existed as members of a group, they had to be socially regulated by a law revealed from without. And even today, human beings have not yet transcended the group “I” in all respects. In how many ways is the human being today by no means an individual human being, but rather a group being! The human being who would already be a free being today—he is called the “Homeless One” at a certain stage of esoteric discipleship—is still merely an ideal! Whoever voluntarily places himself within the workings of the world is an individual; he is not governed by the law. In the Christ principle lies the overcoming of the law: “For the law was given through Moses, but grace came through Christ” (1:17). In the Christian sense, “grace” refers to the soul’s ability to do good from within. Grace and the truth recognized within have come into being through Christ. You can see how profoundly this idea affects the entire evolution of humanity.

[ 35 ] In the past, those who were initiated were led to higher spiritual organs of perception. No one had ever seen a God with physical eyes before. The only-begotten Son, who rests within the Father, is the first to have led us to behold God in the same way that people on Earth perceive their surroundings with earthly senses. Before that, God had remained invisible. He revealed Himself in the supersensible realm through dreams or through other means in the places of initiation. Now God had become a historical, sensory reality, a fleshly form. This is expressed in the words: “No one has ever seen God. The only-begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father of the worlds, has become the guide in this beholding” (1:18). He has enabled human beings to see God with their earthly senses.

[ 36 ] Thus, however, we see how sharply and significantly the Gospel of John refers to the historical event in Palestine, and with what paradigmatic, clearly defined words—words that must, however, be weighed very carefully if we are to use them to understand esoteric Christianity. And now, in the next lectures, we shall see how this theme is further developed and, at the same time, how it is shown that Christ is not only the guide of those connected to the group soul, but how He comes into each individual human being and seeks to endow the individual “I” with His impulse. The blood relationship, of course, remains, but the spirituality of love is added to it. And he gives the impulse to this love, which flows from a free “I” to a free “I.” For those embraced by initiation, one truth after another is revealed day by day. An important truth always reveals itself on the third day. This is the one in which one comes to fully understand that there is a point in the Earth’s evolution through which the material love bound to blood becomes increasingly spiritualized. This is the event intended to illustrate the transition from pure blood-based love to spiritual love. Christ Jesus points to this with meaningful words when he says: “A time will come—my time—when the most important things will be created by people who are no longer bound by blood ties, but by those who stand on their own as individuals.” But this time must first come. — Christ himself, who gives the initial impulse, says on an important occasion that this ideal will one day be fulfilled, but that its time has not yet come. He points this out prophetically when his mother stands before him and urges him to do something for humanity, as she alludes, as it were, to her right to prompt him to perform an important deed for humankind. He replies: Yes, what we can do today still has something to do with blood ties, with the relationship of “you and me”; “for my time has not yet come” (John 2:4). The fact that such a time is coming, when the individual must stand on his own, is expressed in the story of the wedding at Cana; and Jesus responds to the plea, “They have no wine!” (2:3) by saying, “This is something that still has to do with ‘me and you’; my time has not yet come.” Hence the words “from me to you” and “my time has not yet come.” What is written there in the text points to this mystery. Like so much else, this passage has always been translated rather crudely. It should not read, “Woman, what do I have to do with you?” but rather, “What is going on between me and you?” The text is that delicate and subtle, but it is understandable only to those who wish to understand it. But when these religious documents are repeatedly interpreted today by all sorts of people, one is tempted to ask: Do those who call themselves Christians have no qualms whatsoever when they have Christ—based on an incorrect translation—say, “Woman, what do I have to do with you?”

[ 37 ] When it comes to much of what is called Christianity today and claims to be based on the Gospel, one must ask: Do they actually have the Gospel? The point is that one must first have the Gospel. And with a text as profound as the Gospel of John, it is truly a matter of first weighing every word on a gold scale in order to recognize its true value.