The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fifth Lecture

[ 1 ] The great spiritual currents of humanity that make their way through the world all have their own special mission. They do not flow through the world in isolation; rather, they are separated only during certain epochs, and then they intersect in the most diverse ways and enrich one another. We see such a great, powerful convergence of humanity’s spiritual currents particularly in the events in Palestine. It is, after all, our task to bring this event into our consciousness with ever greater clarity. But worldviews, as they make their way, do not proceed in such a way that—as one might perhaps imagine in the abstract—they travel, as it were, through the air and converge at a single point; rather, worldviews flow through beings, through individualities. Where a worldview first emerges, it must be carried by an individuality. Where spiritual currents converge and mutually enrich one another, something quite special must also be taking place within those who are the bearers of these worldviews.

[ 2 ] Some may have found it very complicated in yesterday’s lecture to see how the two great spiritual currents of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism actually converge in the events in Palestine. If we were to speak only in abstract terms and not address the events concretely, we would need only to show how these two worldviews are connected. As anthroposophists, however, it is our task to point out both the individualities who were the bearers of these two worldviews and what is present within them; for the anthroposophist should move ever more from the abstract into the concrete. So it should come as no surprise to you that, where something so great and momentous was to take place, there was also a great external complication of circumstances, such that Zoroastrianism and Buddhism could not simply merge. This had to be prepared slowly and gradually.

[ 3 ] Thus we see how Buddhism flowed in and exerted its influence on the personality who was born to Joseph and Mary of the Nathanic line of the House of David as the child described to us in the Gospel of Luke. On the other hand, we have, descending from the Solomonic line of the House of David, the parents Joseph and Mary with the child Jesus, who originally lived in Bethlehem and who is described to us by the author of the Gospel of Matthew. This boy Jesus from the Solomonic line is the bearer of that individuality which once, as Zarathustra, founded the primordial Persian culture. Thus, at the starting point of our calendar, we have, as actual individualities standing side by side, the two currents of Buddhism on the one hand—as it is first described to us in the Gospel of Luke—and Zoroastrianism on the other hand—as it is described to us by Matthew through Jesus of the Solomonic line of the House of David. The dates of the births of these two boys do not coincide exactly.

[ 4 ] Of course, today I must say something that is not found in the Gospels; but you will understand the Gospels more clearly if you learn something from the Akashic Records—things whose effects and consequences the Gospels allude to, but which they could not recount themselves. It must be noted that what is written at the end of the Gospel of John applies to all the Gospels: “that even if all the books in the world were written, they would not be enough to describe all the facts that need to be described” (John 21:25). And the revelations that have come to humanity through Christianity are not of the kind that were once completed, written down in books, and thereby given to the world in their entirety in written form. True is the word, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). Christ is present not as one who is dead, but as one who is alive, and those whose spiritual eyes are opened can continually receive from him what he has to give us. Christianity is a living spiritual current, and its revelations will continue as long as people are capable of receiving them. Thus, some facts will be mentioned today whose consequences are found in the Gospels, but which are not explicitly stated there. You can, however, verify them by examining the external facts, and you will then find them to be true.

[ 5 ] The births of the two boys named Jesus were thus separated by a few months. But both the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke and the John were born so much later that they could not have been affected by the so-called Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem. For have you ever considered that those who read about the Massacre of the Innocents in Bethlehem must surely ask themselves: Why, then, were we still able to have John? — But the facts are such that you will find them to be true in spite of everything. Imagine that the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew is taken to Egypt by his parents and that John is born shortly before or at the same time. According to the common view, he remains in Palestine, where he should actually have been affected by what Herod decreed. He should therefore have died as a result of Herod’s massacre and could not have been there. You see that one really must reflect on all these things. For if all children under the age of two had truly been killed at that time, John would have had to have been killed as well. However, you will find an explanation if you consider the facts from the Akashic Records and realize that the events described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke do not occur at the same time, so that the birth of the Nathanic Jesus no longer falls within the period of the Mass of the Innocents in Bethlehem. And the same is true of John. Although only a few months separate them, they are sufficient to make these events possible.

[ 6 ] Likewise, you will come to understand the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew through these more intimate details. In this boy, the individuality we have come to know as Zarathustra of the ancient Persian culture is reincarnated. We know of this Zarathustra that he once imparted the great teaching of Ahura Mazdao—the great solar being—to his Persian people. We know that we must conceive of this solar being as the spiritual-soul aspect of that of which the outer, physical sun represents the physical aspect. Therefore, Zarathustra could say: Do not merely see the physical sun shining, but behold the mighty being who sends down his beneficial effects spiritually just as the physical sun sends down its beneficial effects in light and warmth. — Ahura Mazdao, whom later generations called Christ in other words, was the one Zarathustra proclaimed to the Persian people. He did not yet proclaim him as a being who had walked the earth; he could only point to the sun and say: “He dwells up there; he is gradually drawing nearer to the earth and will one day dwell on earth in a physical body.”

[ 7 ] Here, too, we can begin to grasp the vast, fundamental difference between Zoroastrianism and Buddhism. There is a profound difference between the two as long as they remained separate; and these differences are reconciled the moment they converge and are revitalized through the events in Palestine.

[ 8 ] Let us once again turn our attention to what the Buddha had to offer the world. We have outlined the Buddha’s teaching as the Eightfold Path—that which the human soul must internalize if it is to escape the dire consequences of karma. What the Buddha gave to the world was what human beings must develop over time from their own disposition and morality: compassion and love. I have also told you that the moment the Bodhisattva essence appeared in the Buddha was a unique moment in history. Had it not happened at that time that the Bodhisattva appeared fully within the body of the great Gautama Buddha, then what we call lawfulness, or Dharma—which a human being can develop from within only by casting out their astral content in order to free themselves from all the adverse effects of karma—could not have passed into the human soul of every person. This is also magnificently hinted at in the Buddha legend, where it is said that the Buddha came to “turn the wheel of the Law.” This means that a wave of energy truly flowed from the Bodhisattva’s enlightenment to the Buddha, spreading across all of humanity, and the result was that people could now develop Dharma from within their own souls and gradually ascend to the full depth of the Eightfold Path. Therein lies the origin, when the Buddha first developed the teaching that was actually intended to form the foundation of the moral disposition of the people of Earth.

[ 9 ] That was the task of this Bodhisattva. And we can see how these individual tasks are distributed among the great personalities when we recognize that, in Buddhism, we find in its original form everything that a human being can experience within their own soul as their great ideal. The ideal of the human soul—what a human being is and can become—is the essence of the Buddha’s teaching. But that was also enough for this individual. Everything in Buddhism is inwardness; everything relates to the human being and his development, and we find nothing in original, authentic Buddhism that we could call cosmological teachings, even if such teachings were later introduced. Everything must, of course, be structured. But the Bodhisattva’s true mission was this: to bring to humanity the teaching of the inner nature of the soul itself. Thus, in certain sermons, the Buddha even refrains from saying anything specific about cosmic connections. Everything is structured in such a way that the human soul, when it allows the Buddha’s teaching to take effect upon it, can become better and better. Human beings are understood as beings in and of themselves; the great womb of the universe from which humanity emerged is set aside. Because this was the Bodhisattva’s special mission, the Buddha’s teachings—when truly understood—have such a warm and profound effect on the human soul; and this is why they appear so deeply imbued with emotion and so inwardly warm to the human soul that seeks to engage with them, especially where they appear, rejuvenated, in the Gospel of Luke.

[ 10 ] The individuality incarnated as Zarathustra among the ancient Persian people had an entirely different task—one that was quite the opposite. Zarathustra taught how to spiritually comprehend and penetrate the God outside, the great cosmos. Buddha directed our gaze inward and said: As human beings develop, the “six organs”—which we have listed as the five sense organs and the manas—gradually emerge from ignorance. — But everything that is within human beings is born from the great world. We would have no light-sensitive eye if light had not brought the eye forth from the organism. “The eye is created by light for light,” says Goethe. This is a profound truth. From indifferent organs that were once within the human body, light has formed the eye. In the same way, all spiritual forces in the world shape the human being. What is within him is first organized from the divine-spiritual forces. Therefore, for everything inner, there is a corresponding outer aspect. Forces flow into the human being from the outside and then reside within him. And Zarathustra had the task of pointing out what is external, what is in the human being’s surroundings. That is why he spoke, for example, of the Amshaspands, the great genii, of whom he initially listed six—there are actually twelve, but the other six are hidden. These Amshaspands act from the outside in an organizing capacity as the formers and shapers of the human organs. Zarathustra showed how the creators of humankind stand behind the human sense organs. Zarathustra pointed to the great genii, to the forces we find outside ourselves. Buddha, on the other hand, pointed to what acts as forces within the human being—to the hidden forces within the human being. Zarathustra, however, then pointed to those forces and beings that stand beneath the Amshaspands—which he called the twenty-eight Izards or Izeds—and which, in turn, work into the human being from the outside to contribute to its inner organization. Thus, Zarathustra again pointed to the spiritual in the cosmos, to the outer interrelationships. And while the Buddha pointed to the actual substance of thought—from which thoughts arise from the human soul—Zarathustra pointed to the Farohars, or Feruers, or Frawarschai: the world-creating thoughts that surround us, scattered throughout the world. For whatever thoughts a human being has are present everywhere in the world outside.

[ 11 ] Thus, Zarathustra had a worldview to proclaim that dealt with deciphering and analyzing the external world. He had to provide a worldview for a people who had to get their hands dirty, who had to work on the external world. Zarathustra’s mission is entirely in harmony with the characteristic traits of the ancient Persian people. Thus, we could also say that it was Zarathustra’s destiny to cultivate strength and competence in engaging with the external world, even if this was initially expressed in a manner that might seem repulsive to people today. To generate strength, competence, and confidence for outward action through the knowledge that human beings are not only secure within themselves but also rest in the bosom of a divinely spiritual world—that was Zarathustra’s mission: to point out that human beings should say to themselves: Wherever you stand in the universe, you do not stand alone; you stand in a spirit-pervaded cosmos and are a part of the world gods and world spirits; you are born of the Spirit and rest within it. With every breath you inhale divine spirit; with every breath you exhale, you may offer a sacrifice to the great Spirit. — Therefore, in keeping with his mission, Zarathustra’s initiation had to be different from that of the other great missionaries of humanity.

[ 12 ] Let us now recall what that individuality, incarnated in Zarathustra, was permitted to do. It had reached such a high level of development that it could lay the groundwork for the next cultural current following the proto-Persian one—the Egyptian culture. — Zarathustra had two disciples: the individuality who later reappeared as the Egyptian Hermes, and the one who later reappeared as Moses. And when these two individualities were reincarnated into humanity to continue their work, the astral body of Zarathustra—which he had offered as a sacrifice—was incorporated into Hermes. We must see in the Egyptian Hermes a reincarnation of Zarathustra’s astral body. Hermes carried within himself Zarathustra’s astral body, which had been entrusted to him so that everything Zarathustra had absorbed regarding external world knowledge could be reborn in the external world. And the etheric body of Zarathustra was transferred to Moses; and because everything that develops over time is linked to the etheric body, Moses—when he became aware of the mysteries of his etheric body—was able to evoke the processes of time in grand, powerful images, such as those we encounter in Genesis. Thus Zarathustra continued to work through the power of his individuality, inaugurating and influencing Egyptian culture and what emerged from it as ancient Hebrew culture.

[ 13 ] Such an individuality is destined for greatness, not least because of its “I.” Zarathustra’s “I” has incarnated time and again in other personalities. For an individuality that has advanced this far can repeatedly sanctify an astral body and strengthen an etheric body, even after having relinquished its original ones. Thus Zarathustra, too, was reborn and appeared again six hundred years before our era in ancient Chaldea as Zarathas or Nazarathos, who became the teacher of the Chaldean mystery school as well as the teacher of Pythagoras and was able to gain great and profound insights into the outer world. If we immerse ourselves with true understanding in the wisdom of the Chaldeans—not through what anthropology can offer us, but through what anthroposophy can provide—then we gain a glimpse of what Zarathustra, as Zarathas, was able to teach in the secret schools of the ancient Chaldeans.

[ 14 ] Everything that Zarathustra could teach and bring to the world, as we have seen, was directed toward the external world, in order to bring order and harmony to it. Therefore, the art of establishing and organizing kingdoms—in a manner consistent with the progress of humanity and enabling social order—was also Zarathustra’s mission. And for this reason, those who were among Zarathustra’s disciples can rightly be called not only great magicians and great initiates, but also, without exception, kings—that is, those who know the art of establishing external social organization and order.

[ 15 ] An immense devotion developed in the schools of the Chaldeans toward the individuality—not the personality—of Zarathustra. These sages of the East felt a kinship with their great leader. They saw in him the star of humanity, for “Zoroaster” is a paraphrase of the word “golden star” or “star of splendor.” They saw in him a reflection of the sun itself. And out of their profound wisdom, it could not remain hidden from them when their master reappeared in Bethlehem. There they were guided by their star and brought him the outward symbols of the best he could have given to humanity. The best that could be given to a person from the Zarathustra tradition was knowledge of the outer world, of the mysteries of the cosmos, absorbed into the human astral body, into thinking, feeling, and willing—so that the disciples of Zarathustra sought to imbue their thinking, feeling, and willing—the powers of their soul—with the wisdom that can be absorbed from the deep foundations of the divine-spiritual world. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh served as symbols for this knowledge, which one can make one’s own by absorbing the outer mysteries: gold as a symbol of thinking, frankincense of piety—of that which permeates us as feeling—and myrrh of the power of will. Thus they demonstrated their kinship with their Master when they appeared before him upon his rebirth in Bethlehem. Therefore, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew correctly tells us how the Magi, among whom Zarathustra had worked, knew that he had reappeared among humanity, and how they expressed their kinship with him through the three symbols —gold, frankincense, and myrrh—the symbols of the best he had given them, expressed their kinship with him (Matthew 2:11).

[ 16 ] The point was that Zarathustra, in the form of Jesus from the Solomonic line of the House of David, could work powerfully to restore to all of humanity, in a rejuvenated form, everything he had already given them. To do this, he had to gather all the power he had once possessed. For this reason, he could not initially be born into a body descended from the priestly line of the House of David, but only into one from the royal line. Thus, the Gospel of Matthew expresses the connection between the royal name in ancient Persia and the lineage of the child into whom Zarathustra was incarnated. The ancient wisdom books of the Near East have also always pointed to these events. Those who truly understand these books of wisdom read them differently from those who are unaware of the facts and therefore confuse everything. For example, in the Old Testament we have two prophecies: one in the Apocrypha of Enoch, which points more toward the Nathanic Messiah from the priestly line, and one in the Psalms, which points toward the Messiah from the royal line. Every single detail referred to in the Scriptures corresponds to the facts we can glean from the Akashic Records. But Zarathustra now had to gather together every single element of the forces that had once resided within him. He had imparted to Egyptian and ancient Hebrew culture—to Hermes and Moses—what was contained in his astral body and his etheric body. He had to reunite with these forces. He had to, as it were, retrieve the forces of his etheric body from Egypt. A profound mystery unfolds before our eyes: Jesus of the Solomonic line of the House of David, who is the reincarnated Zarathustra, must be led to Egypt; and he is led there. For there lie the forces that flowed out of his astral and etheric bodies, which he had first bestowed upon Hermes and then upon Moses. Because he had influenced Egyptian culture, he had to, as it were, reclaim the forces he had bestowed there. Hence the “Flight into Egypt” and what took place spiritually: the absorption of all the forces he now needed in order to powerfully restore to humanity, in a rejuvenated form, what he had given them in times past.

[ 17 ] Thus we see how Matthew correctly describes the Jesus of Bethlehem, whose parents had previously resided in Bethlehem. Only Luke recounts that the parents of his Jesus were residents of Nazareth, that they went to Bethlehem for the census, and that during this brief time, Luke’s Jesus was born there, after which the parents returned to Nazareth. The Gospel of Matthew merely notes that Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that he had to be taken to Egypt. Only after returning from Egypt do his parents settle in Nazareth in order to have Jesus—who is the reincarnated Zarathustra—near the one who represents the other spiritual tradition, Buddhism. In this concrete way, the two worldviews are brought together.

[ 18 ] Where the Gospels become truly profound, they also reveal to us, in all their depth, what it is all about. That which in human beings is more closely connected with the will and strength—with the “royal element,” to use the term technically—was known to those who understood the mysteries of existence: that it is transmitted through external heredity from the paternal element. But what is connected to the inner element—to wisdom and the inner flexibility of the spirit—is transmitted through the maternal element. Goethe, who looked so deeply into the mysteries of existence, hints at this connection in the following words:

From my father I got my build,
A serious approach to life,
From my mother, her cheerful disposition
And a love of storytelling

[ 19 ] — a truth that you can find confirmed so often in the world. A person inherits from the paternal element their stature, their outward form—that which is immediately expressed in their outward form—and “the serious conduct of life,” which is connected to the character of the “I.” That is why the Solomonic Jesus had to inherit strength above all from the paternal element, for it was always his mission: to bring into the world that which the world is surrounded by in space as divine forces. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew expresses this as magnificently as it can be expressed. The fact that a unique individual will be incarnated is proclaimed from the spiritual world as a momentous event, and it is announced not to Mary, but to the father, Joseph (Matthew 1:20–21). Behind all this lie the deepest truths; such a thing must not be regarded as a mere coincidence. — The Jesus of the Nathanic line inherited the inner qualities passed down from his mother. Therefore, the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke had to be announced to his mother, and we also see in the Gospel of Luke that the Annunciation took place to the mother (Luke 1:26–38). This is how profoundly the facts are expressed in the religious scriptures. But let us continue.

[ 20 ] Significant insights are also expressed in all the other events that are described. First, the forerunner of Jesus of Nazareth is to appear to humanity in the person of John the Baptist. We can only come to understand the individuality of John the Baptist more fully over time. For now, let us accept him as he appears to us in the picture, as one who is to foreshadow what is to come in Jesus. He proclaims this by summarizing, with infinite power, everything contained in the external law and in the ancient proclamation. The Baptist seeks to bring to people what is written in the Law—that which has become ancient in culture but which people have forgotten; that which is ripe but which people no longer heed. He must therefore, above all, possess the strength inherent in a soul that is born into the world ripe, even overripe. He is born to an elderly couple, born in such a way that his astral body is, from the very beginning, pure and purified in the face of all the forces that pull human beings down, because passion and desire play no part in the lives of the elderly couple. This, too, is a profound wisdom hinted at in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 1:18). The Great Mother Lodge of Humanity also provides for such an individuality. Where the Great Manu directs and guides the processes in the spiritual realm, there the currents are sent to where they are needed. An “I” such as that of John the Baptist is born into a body directly under the guidance and direction of the Great Mother Lodge of Humanity, the central seat of earthly spiritual life. The John-I originated from this same source, from which the soul-being for the infant Jesus of the Gospel of Luke also originated, except that Jesus was endowed with qualities that had not yet been permeated by the ego that had become self-centered; that is to say, a young soul is directed to the place where the reborn Adam is to be incarnated.

[ 21 ] It may seem strange to you that, in this instance, a soul could be directed from the Great Mother Lodge to a particular place without an actual, fully developed “I.” For the very same “I” that is, in essence, withheld from the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke is bestowed upon the body of John the Baptist; and these two—that which lives as a soul-being in the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke and that which lives as the “I” in John the Baptist—are connected by an inner relationship from the very beginning. When the human embryo develops in the mother’s womb, the “I” does indeed unite with the other members of the human organism in the third week, but it only gradually becomes active in the final months before birth. Only then does the “I” become an inner, motivating force. For in a normal case, where the “I” acts in the usual way to set the human embryo in motion, we are dealing with an “I” that originates from earlier incarnations and sets the human embryo in motion. Here, however, in the case of John the Baptist, we are dealing with an “I” that is connected to the soul-being of the Nathanic Jesus. Therefore, in the Gospel of Luke, the mother of Jesus must go to the mother of John the Baptist when the latter is in her sixth month of pregnancy, and what is otherwise stimulated by one’s own “I” within one’s own personality is here stimulated by the other unborn child. Elizabeth’s child begins to move as the woman who carries the infant Jesus within her approaches; for it is the “I” through which the child in the other mother is stirred (Luke 1:39–44). So profound is the connection between the one who was to bring about the convergence of the two spiritual currents and the one who was to foreshadow him.

[ 22 ] Thus we see that, at the beginning of our calendar, something truly extraordinary is indeed taking place. If people generally prefer to keep the truth simple, this stems from human laziness, which is reluctant to grapple with complex concepts; but the greatest truths can only be grasped through the greatest exertions of the mind. If a person must already make the greatest efforts to describe a machine, then he certainly cannot expect the greatest truths to be the simplest as well. The truth is great and therefore complex, and we must exert our intellectual faculties if we are to gradually understand the truths pertaining to the events in Palestine. Let no one succumb to the objection that things are being presented as too complicated; they are presented as they are, and they are so because we are dealing with the greatest fact in the history of the Earth.

[ 23 ] Thus we see two infant Jesuses growing up: on the one hand, the son of the Nathanic parents Joseph and Mary, and on the other, this son born of a young mother—in Hebrew, the word “Alma” would have been used for this—; for that which was to act as a young soul had to be born of a very young mother. After returning from Bethlehem, the parents lived in Nazareth again with this son. They had no other children. It was reserved for the mother to be, solely and exclusively, the mother of this Jesus.— Then we have the Jesus of the parents Joseph and Mary from the Solomonic line. After this couple returned from Egypt and settled in Nazareth, they had a number of other children, whom you will find listed in the Gospel of Mark: Simon, Judas, Joses, James, and also two sisters (Mark 6:3). — The two children named Jesus grow up. The child who embodies the Zarathustra individuality gradually develops—with incredibly rapid maturation—the powers he must develop when such a powerful individuality is active within the body. The individuality active within the body of the other Jesus is of a different kind. The most important aspect of this individuality is, after all, the Buddha’s Nirmanakaya. This is something that rests upon this child. That is why we are also told, when the parents return from Jerusalem: “The child is full of wisdom”—that is, wisdom flows through his etheric body—and the grace of God is upon him (Luke 2:40). But the child grew up in such a way that it developed the ordinary human faculties—those related to understanding and perception of the external world—extremely slowly. A superficial person would have called this very Child Jesus a “relatively retarded child” if he had looked only at the faculties for understanding and perceiving the external world. Instead, however, what flowed down from the Buddha’s Nirmanakaya, which overshadowed him, developed precisely in this child. He developed a depth of inner life that cannot be compared to anything else in the world. A depth of feeling developed in the boy that had an extraordinary effect on his entire surroundings. - Thus we see a deeply emotional being growing up in the Nathanic Jesus, and we see an individuality of immense maturity, with a profound understanding of the world, growing up in the Solomonic Jesus.

[ 24 ] Now, something significant had been revealed to the mother of Jesus of Nathan, that deeply sensitive child. Even when Simeon stood before the newborn child and saw him radiant with the presence of the one he had once been unable to see in India as the Buddha, he foretold the great and mighty events that were now to unfold; but he also spoke the profound, meaningful words about the “sword that would pierce the mother’s heart” (Luke 2:35). This statement, too, refers to something we are still striving to understand today.

[ 25 ] The two children grew up in the immediate neighborhood and within the framework of their parents’ friendly relationship, both developing in this way until about the age of twelve. As the twelfth year of Jesus of Nazareth approached, his parents went to Jerusalem—as is said, in accordance with custom—to participate in the Passover festival, and they took the child with them, as was customary when children came of age. Now, in the Gospel of Luke, there is an account of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple, told in an extraordinarily mysterious way. It says there: When the parents were returning from the festival, they suddenly realized the boy was missing, and when they could not find him anywhere among their traveling party, they went back and found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, astonishing them all with his wisdom (Luke 2:41–50).

[ 26 ] What had happened there? Let us ask the imperishable Akashic Records about this. The realities of the world are not quite so simple. What happened here also occurs in other ways elsewhere in the world. It happens that an individual, at a certain stage of development, needs different conditions than those that were given to them from the beginning. That is why it happens time and again that a person grows up to a certain age—and then suddenly faints and appears to be dead. A transformation then takes place: his own “I” leaves him, and another “I” takes its place within his physical body. Such a rearrangement of the “I” also occurs in other cases; this is a phenomenon familiar to every occultist. Here, in the case of the twelve-year-old Jesus, the following had happened: That “I,” which until then, as the Zarathustra “I,” had used the body of Jesus from the royal line of the House of David to reach the pinnacle of his time, emerged from the body of the Solomonic Jesus-boy and transferred itself to the Nathanic Jesus, who therefore appeared as if transformed. His parents did not recognize him; they did not understand his words. For now the Zarathustra Self, which had transferred itself to him, was speaking through the Nathanic Jesus. That was the moment when the Buddha’s Nirmanakaya united with the astral womb from which he had emerged, and that was also the moment when the Zarathustra Self united with the Nathanic Jesus. Now the Zarathustra-Self lived within the Nathanic Jesus. And this child, who had been so transformed that his parents could not understand him, they now took home with them.

[ 27 ] Not long after, the mother of this infant Jesus died, so that this child, in whom the Zarathustra-I now dwelt, was orphaned on his mother’s side. We shall see that the fact that this mother died and left the child an orphan points to a particularly profound connection. — Nor could the other child continue to live under ordinary circumstances after the Zarathustra “I” had left him. Joseph of the Solomonic line had already died, and the mother of the Solomonic infant Jesus, along with her children—James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and the two daughters—was taken in by the household of Joseph of the Nathanic line, so that Zarathustra was now once again living with the family into which he had incarnated, with the exception of the father. In this way, the two families merged into one, and so the mother of the siblings—we can call them siblings, for in terms of the “I,” they are siblings—lived in the home of the Nathanite Joseph with Jesus, who, however, was physically at home in Nazareth, his hometown. Thus he lived together with them.

[ 28 ] Thus we see, in concrete terms, the convergence of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism. For that body, in which the mature “I”-soul of Zarathustra dwelt, was able to take in and unite with itself that which had come into being when the Buddha’s Nirmanakaya had taken in the astral mother-sheath shed by the Nathanic Jesus. Thus we now see an individuality growing within Jesus of Nazareth that carries within itself the “I”-ness of Zarathustra, which is illuminated and spiritualized by the rejuvenated Nirmanakaya of the Buddha. We see the convergence of Buddhism and Zoroastrianism living in this way within the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. Since Joseph of the Nathanic line also died—and relatively early at that—the child of Zarathustra is, in truth, an orphan; he feels orphaned. He is not what he is according to his physical lineage. In spirit, it is the resurrected Zarathustra. According to its physical lineage, its father is Joseph of the Nathanite line, and from an outward perspective, the world had to regard it as such. Luke tells us this precisely, and we must take his words literally:

“And it came to pass that when all the people were being baptized, and Jesus had also been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened; and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, saying: ‘You are my beloved Son; today I have begotten you. And Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his ministry...”

[ 29 ] And now it is not simply stated that he is a son of Joseph, but it says:

[ 30 ] “...and was considered the son of Joseph” (Luke 3:21–23), for the “I” had originally incarnated in the Solomonic Jesus and thus had essentially nothing to do with the Nathanic Joseph.

[ 31 ] Now we have before us a unified being in Jesus of Nazareth, who possessed a vast, mighty inner world in which everything we recognize as the blessings of Buddhism and everything we recognize as the blessings of Zoroastrianism were united. That inner life was later called to something great and mighty. Something quite different was to happen to him than to those whom John baptized in the Jordan. And we shall see that later this inner life was to receive the individuality of the Christ in the Jordan. There, too, the immortal essence of the original mother of the Nathanic Jesus descended once more and transformed the mother who had been taken into the household of the Nathanic Joseph, restoring her to virginity, so that the soul of that mother—whom Jesus had lost—was returned to him at the baptism by John. This mother, who remained with him, thus harbors within herself the soul of his original mother, who is called the blessed Mary in the Bible (Luke 1:28).