The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Tenth Lecture

[ 1 ] What we shall focus on today is bringing together the various insights we have gained over the past few days and leading them to the culminating point of the whole, as it can be revealed to us through spiritual research, specifically as presented in the Gospel of Luke—that culminating point which we call the Mystery of Golgotha.

[ 2 ] Yesterday we attempted to vividly describe what actually took place at that point in human evolution when Christ walked the earth for three years, and in the preceding lectures we sought to characterize how this event could have come about through the convergence of those spiritual currents we have been examining. The writer of the Gospel of Luke, in particular, characterizes the entire mission of Christ Jesus on Earth in a wonderful way, if only we are able to view what he describes in the light of the insights gained from the Akashic Records.

[ 3 ] Someone might now ask: Since the Buddhist spiritual current is so organically interwoven with Christian doctrine, why is there no mention within Christian doctrine of the great law of karma—of that balancing out that takes place over the course of a person’s individual incarnations? However, it would be a misunderstanding to believe that what we are meant to recognize through the law of karma is not also found in the Gospel of Luke. It is indeed found there. We must simply be clear, if we wish to understand such things correctly, that the needs of human souls vary at different times, and that the great missionaries of world evolution do not always have the task of presenting the absolute truth to people in abstract form. For people at various stages of maturity would not understand it at all; rather, the great missionaries must speak to people in such a way that they receive what is right for their particular era. In what humanity has received through the influence of the great Buddha, all the wisdom is contained that—in connection with the teaching of compassion and love, and the elaboration of this teaching in the Eightfold Path—can lead to a wise understanding of the doctrine of karma. And it is said: do not seek everything in the human soul that leads to the doctrine of karma and the associated doctrine of reincarnation if, starting from this, one does not arrive at this doctrine.

[ 4 ] Yesterday it was described how, three thousand years from now, a large portion of humanity will have reached the point where it can derive the teaching of the Eightfold Path—and with it, as we can add today, the teachings on karma and reincarnation—from within itself. But this must happen step by step; it must happen very gradually. For just as a plant cannot immediately develop a flower right after we have planted the seed in the earth—but must first develop leaf by leaf according to necessary laws—so, too, it is necessary that the spiritual development running through humanity proceed step by step, and that the right thing appear at the right time. Anyone who, imbued with the abilities that spiritual science can provide, delves into their own soul today will find the doctrine of karma and reincarnation to be a necessary one. But note that this development does not come about by chance; it is truly the case that only in our time have souls once again become ripe to find within themselves what is called the doctrine of karma and reincarnation. It would not have been good if, for example, this teaching had been proclaimed exoterically a few centuries earlier, and it would not have been good for human development if what is now the substance of spiritual science—for which human souls yearn, and which is connected to the exploration of the deeper meanings of the Gospels—had been proclaimed to humanity in an open form a few centuries ago. For it was necessary that these souls of humanity yearn for this and develop the capacities to receive the doctrine of karma and reincarnation. It was necessary that these souls had already passed through earlier incarnations—including those of the post-Christian era—and had experienced what one experiences before one is ripe to receive the doctrine of karma and reincarnation. If the teachings of karma and reincarnation had been proclaimed as openly in the first centuries of Christianity as they are today, it would have meant demanding of human development the same thing as demanding that a flower grow directly from a plant instead of a green leaf.

[ 5 ] It is only today that humanity has matured enough to truly grasp the spiritual essence of the teachings of karma and reincarnation. It is therefore by no means surprising that much of what has been handed down to humanity from the Gospels over the centuries actually presents a completely false picture of Christianity. The Gospel was, so to speak, handed down to people prematurely in a certain sense, and only now is humanity maturing to the point of developing within the soul all the capacities that can lead to an understanding of what the Gospels actually contain. It was absolutely necessary that the proclamation of Jesus Christ take into account the state of human souls at that time; so that at that time, reincarnation and karma were not taught as abstract doctrines, but rather, feelings were allowed to flow into the human soul through which the souls gradually matured to the point of being able to accept the doctrine of reincarnation and karma. In other words, at that time it was necessary to say what could gradually lead to an understanding of the teachings on karma and reincarnation, rather than the teachings themselves.

[ 6 ] Did Christ Jesus and those around him say this? To understand this, we must open the Gospel of Luke and allow it to truly sink into our souls. And if we allow it to truly sink into our souls with an understanding of these things, we will see how the Law of Karma could be proclaimed to people at that time.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of heaven is yours.

Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude you and revile you, and when they cast out your name as evil because of the Son of Man.

Rejoice on that day and be glad, for behold, your reward is great in the spiritual worlds” (Luke 6:20–23).

[ 7 ] Here we have the doctrine of compensation, which—without delving into the doctrines of karma and reincarnation in an abstract manner—strives to instill in souls the emotional certainty that whoever still suffers deprivation in any area will experience compensation. These feelings had to flow into human souls. And the souls who lived at that time—into whom this teaching poured itself in this form—were not ready to receive the doctrine of karma and reincarnation as wisdom until they had incarnated again.

[ 8 ] Thus, at that time, what was to mature within the souls had to flow into them. For a completely new era had dawned, an era in which human beings, having reached full maturity, were preparing to develop their “I,” their self-consciousness. Whereas in the past people received revelations and experienced their effects in the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body, the “I” was now to become fully conscious. But it was to fill itself only gradually with the forces it was to receive. Only that one “I” who walked the Earth at that time and was physically prepared for it—who, as the Nathanic Jesus, had embodied the individuality of Zarathustra within himself—only this “I” could realize the all-encompassing Christ principle within himself. The other human beings must now, little by little, in the footsteps of the Christ, develop what was present in that one personality on Earth for three years. Christ Jesus was able to implant into humanity, so to speak, only the impulse—the seed—at that time, and this seed must now gradually grow and unfold. Provision has also been made to ensure that, at the appropriate times within Earth’s evolution, those human beings may appear who can now bring forth what humanity will become ready for at a later time. The One who appeared on Earth as the Christ at that time had to ensure that, immediately after His appearance, humanity received the proclamation in a form it could understand; and He also had to make provisions so that individualities would later appear who would care for the souls in a spiritual sense to the extent that they would later become more mature.

[ 9 ] The author of the Gospel of John describes to us the way in which Christ made provision for the times that followed the events at Golgotha. He shows us how Christ Himself raised up in Lazarus that individuality which then continued to work as John, and from which the teaching went forth in the form described in the lectures on the Gospel of John. But Christ also had to ensure that, in later times, that individuality could come into being who—in keeping with the course of further development—could bring into humanity what people would later be ready to receive. To this end, however, Christ had to raise another individuality from the dead. The author of the Gospel of Luke faithfully describes how this came about. While he states that he intends to describe what the imaginative and inspired clairvoyants of that time could say about the event in Palestine, he simultaneously points to what will one day be taught by another; but it will not be taught until the future. And to describe this mysterious process to us, the author of the Gospel of Luke has also woven a resurrection into his account (Luke 7:11–17). What we read about the “Resurrection of the Young Man at Nain” contains the mystery of Christianity’s enduring influence. Whereas in the healing of Jairus’s daughter—which I was able to explain to you, at least in part, the day before yesterday—the mysteries associated with it are so profound that Christ Jesus takes only a few of the people who witnessed the healing and instructs them not to tell anyone about it, we see another resurrection unfold in such a way that it is recounted immediately afterward. The former was a healing process that required the one who performed it to look deeply into the processes of the physical body. The latter was a resurrection, an initiation. The individuality contained within the body of the young man of Nain was to undergo an initiation of a very special kind.

[ 10 ] There are various types of initiation. In one type, the person who has been initiated sees the insights of the higher worlds light up within them immediately after the initiation process, enabling them to look into the processes and laws of the spiritual worlds. Another type of initiation, however, may take place in such a way that at first only the seed is planted within the soul in question, so that it must then await another incarnation; later, this seed sprouts, and in the subsequent incarnation, the individual becomes an initiate in the full sense of the word.

[ 11 ] Such an initiation was performed with the young man of Nain. At that time, his soul was transformed during the event in Palestine; at that point, it was not yet aware that it had ascended into the higher worlds. It was not until the next incarnation that the powers which had been placed within that soul at that time began to emerge. — The names of those involved at that time cannot be mentioned here in an exoteric lecture; but it can only be pointed out that later, in a mighty religious teacher, the very individuality awakened that Christ Jesus had awakened in the young man of Nain, and that in this way, in later times, a new teacher of Christianity could arise with the forces that had been implanted in his soul at that time.

[ 12 ] In this way, the Christ ensured that an individuality could later emerge who would advance Christianity. And this individuality, which was awakened in the young man of Nain, is destined to later on to increasingly permeate Christianity with the teachings of reincarnation and karma, and to unite those teachings with Christianity—teachings that, at the time when Christ Himself walked the earth, could not yet be explicitly proclaimed as teachings of wisdom, because they first had to be instilled emotionally into human souls.

[ 13 ] Christ Jesus does indeed, in keeping with the Gospel of Luke, point out sufficiently how something entirely new—the emergence of the “I”—has entered into human evolution; He points this out—and one need only be able to read between the lines—that in the past, people did not perceive the spiritual world as flowing into their self-aware “I,” but rather that this spiritual element flowed into them through their physical, etheric, and astral bodies, and that there was always a degree of unconsciousness involved whenever divine-spiritual forces flowed into human beings in the past. This was now to change. In the past, within the current into which Christ Jesus was directly immersed, human beings had to receive the Law of Sinai, which could speak only to the human astral body. It was given to human beings in such a way that, although it worked within them, it did not work directly out of the powers of their “I.” These powers were only possible in the time of Christ Jesus, because it was only then that human beings came to any awareness of their “I” at all. Christ Jesus also alludes to this in the Gospel of Luke, where he speaks of how people must first become fully mature before they can receive a completely new principle into their souls; he alludes to this when he speaks of his forerunner, John the Baptist (Luke 7:18–35).

[ 14 ] How did Christ himself view this individuality of John? He said: John was called to characterize for humanity, in the purest and noblest form, before the appearance of Christ Himself, what the ancient prophetic teaching was—that which flowed down from ancient times in purity and nobility. He regarded John, so to speak, as the one who, as the last, brought forth in the purest and noblest form that which belonged to ancient times. The “Law and the Prophets” extend up to John. He was to present once more to humanity what the ancient teachings and the spiritual substance of the past could offer people. For how must this ancient spiritual substance have worked in the times before the advent of the Christ principle?

[ 15 ] Here we have something that will one day become part of the teachings of modern natural science, provided it allows itself to be inspired, even just a little, by what spiritual science or theosophy is—even if that still seems quite strange to it today. I must address something here that I can only touch upon briefly, but which will show you the depths into which spiritual science is called upon to shed light, particularly in relation to the natural sciences. If you look around today in the fields of natural science and see how it seeks to penetrate the mysteries of human existence through the limited capacities of human thought, you will find it explained that the interaction of the male and female germ cells brings the whole human being into being. This is precisely a fundamental aim of modern natural science: to demonstrate how the entire human being arises from the interaction of the male and female germ cells. Microscopy carefully seeks to determine within the substances which characteristics may originate from the male germ and which from the female germ, and it is satisfied when it believes it can prove how the human being arises from the interaction of male and female germs. But science will be compelled by its own nature to acknowledge that only a part of the human being is determined by the interaction of male and female germ cells, and that for human beings today, in the current cycle of development, it is indeed the case that even if one knows with the utmost precision what comes from one germ and what from the other, one has generally not explained the whole human being.

[ 16 ] There is something in every human being that is not stimulated by the germ, but is, so to speak, a virgin birth—something that flows into the germination from entirely different realms. Something connects with the human germ that does not descend from the father and mother and yet belongs to the human being, that is destined for him, that pours into his “I,” and that can be ennobled when it takes in the Christ principle. That which is born of the Virgin within the human being is what connects with Christ in the course of human evolution. And this is connected—as natural science will one day recognize through its own means—to that significant transition that took place in the time of Christ Jesus. Before that, nothing could exist within the human being that had not come into humanity through the path of the germ. Something truly happens over time that alters the development of the “I.” Humanity has changed since that time; yet it must gradually develop and refine what has been added to the components of the mere seed since then through the assimilation of the Christ principle.

[ 17 ] We are thus approaching a very subtle truth. And for anyone familiar with modern natural science, it is remarkable and interesting that there are already fields today where natural scientists are, so to speak, confronted with the fact that something in human beings does not originate from the germ. The prerequisites for this are already in place; it is just that the researchers’ intellect is not yet advanced enough to correctly recognize what they themselves have established in their experiments and observations. For there is more at work in what objectively takes place in the experiments than modern science currently recognizes. Natural science would not get very far if it were left solely to the skill of the researchers. While this or that researcher stands in the laboratory, works in the clinic, or in the study, the powers that guide and direct the world stand behind him, bringing to the surface what the researcher does not understand—and for which he is merely an instrument. It is therefore entirely correct that even objective research is guided by the “Masters,” that is, by the higher individualities. However, the things now being pointed out are usually not observed. But they will be observed when the researchers’ conscious faculties are imbued with the spiritual teachings of anthroposophy.

[ 18 ] Because what I have just described has taken place, a great change has occurred in human abilities since the appearance of Christ on Earth. Previously, human beings could use only those abilities that had flowed to them from the paternal and maternal germ; for only these are such that they can develop within the human being. As we live between birth and death, we develop the abilities that constitute our physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Before the time of Christ Jesus, the tools that human beings used for themselves had to be prepared solely from the physical germ; afterward, what is known as virgin birth was added—something not at all stimulated by the germ. This can, of course, become very corrupted if a person is devoted to a purely material outlook. But if a person surrenders to the warmth that emanates from the Christ principle, then it can be ennobled, and the person then carries it into subsequent incarnations in an ever higher and higher form.

[ 19 ] But what has now been said presupposes that we understand that in all those proclamations that preceded the proclamation of Christ there was something connected to the faculties derived from the lineage that a human being receives with the seed; and it further presupposes that we must become aware that Christ Jesus had to speak to the faculties that have nothing to do with the seed from the earth, but are connected to the seed from the divine worlds. All those who appeared before Christ Jesus could, in order to speak to humanity, make use only of those faculties that had been imparted to them in their earthly existence through the germicidal forces. All the prophets and heralds, however exalted they were—even when they descended as Bodhisattvas—had to make use, in order to proclaim, of the faculties that had passed through the germ. Christ Jesus, however, spoke to that part of the human being which does not pass through the germ, but which is of the realm of the Divine. He points this out in the Gospel of Luke when he speaks to his disciples about the nature of John the Baptist:

“I tell you, among those born of women there is no greater prophet than John”

[ 20 ] that is, their essence, as it appears to us, is explained by the fact that this essence arose through physical birth from the male and female germ. But he goes on to say:

“The least of those who are not born of a woman, yet unite with the human being from the Kingdom of God, is greater than John” (Luke 7:28).

[ 21 ] Such profound truths lie hidden behind these words. Once people begin to study the Bible in the light of spiritual science, they will see that it contains physiological truths greater than anything that new, amateurish physiological thinking can bring to light. In a passage such as the one just cited lies the impetus to recognize one of the greatest physiological truths. That is how profound the Bible is when we truly understand it.

[ 22 ] What I have just told you, Christ Jesus also explains in many different ways and in other forms. He wishes to point out how what is to take root in the world through him is something entirely new, something entirely different from anything that has ever been proclaimed before, because it is proclaimed with abilities born of the realms of heaven—abilities that we have not inherited. He points out how difficult it is for people to gradually rise to an understanding of such a teaching, such a Gospel, just as people will demand to be convinced in the same way they were convinced in the past. But at the same time he tells them: You cannot be convinced of the new thing that has come, of the new truth, in the same way; for what could serve as testimony in the old form would not convince you in the new form. The nature and form of the old truth are presented at their highest level—as far as human beings can grasp them—in the way it is symbolized in the sign of Jonah. In this sign, the old way symbolizes how a person gradually grows toward knowledge and enters the spiritual worlds, or, to speak in biblical terms, how he becomes a prophet (Luke 11:29–32).

[ 23 ] This is the ancient way of attaining initiation: first, to bring one’s soul to maturity; to prepare everything that can help the soul mature; and then, over the course of three and a half days, to be brought into a state in which one is completely detached from the external world and also from the instruments through which one perceives the external world. Therefore, those who were to be led up into the spiritual world were first carefully prepared; their souls were prepared to perceive spiritual life. Then, for three and a half days, they were withdrawn from the world and taken to a place where they could perceive nothing even through their external senses, where their bodies were in a death-like state, and after three and a half days they were revived; at which point their soul was called back into the body. Then such people were able to recall what they had received as a vision of the higher worlds and to speak of the spiritual worlds themselves. This was the great mystery of initiation: that the soul, after long preparation, was led out of its body for three and a half days into an entirely different world; there it was cut off from the outer world and entered into the spiritual world. Such people—who could be heralds of the spiritual world—were always found among the peoples; they were the ones who had undergone what is alluded to in the Bible as Jonah’s rest in the belly of the whale (Jonah 2:1). A person was prepared for this, and then, as an old initiate, when he appeared before the people, he bore upon himself the sign that was borne by those who could themselves experience the spiritual world—the sign of Jonah.

[ 24 ] This was one form of initiation. According to Christ, there is—in the ancient sense—no other sign than the sign of Jonah (Luke 11:29). And he expresses himself even more clearly in the Gospel of Luke: There is, however, one legacy from ancient times—that one can become a dim, twilight-like clairvoyant without any effort on one’s part, without initiation, and could be led up into the spiritual world through revelation from above. — He wanted to point out that, alongside the type just described, there was this second kind of initiate into the spiritual world—that there were such people who walked among other people and, by virtue of having the appropriate lineage, were able, without having undergone any special initiation, to receive revelations from above in a kind of heightened trance state. And Christ pointed out that this twofold way of entering the spiritual world has been handed down from ancient times. He said: “Look and remember King Solomon.”—In him, he wished to present an individual of the kind who, through no effort of his own but by revelation from above, could look into the spiritual world. That is why the Queen of Sheba, who comes to King Solomon, is the bearer of wisdom from above—the representative of those who are predestined to possess all the vestiges of that dim, twilight-like clairvoyance which all people possessed in the Atlantean era (Luke 11:31).

[ 25 ] There were two kinds of initiates: one kind, represented by Solomon and symbolized by the Queen of Sheba, the Queen of the South, coming to him; the other type was that which took place under the sign of Jonah—that is, the ancient initiation in which one passes through the spiritual world for three and a half days in complete seclusion from the outside world. Now Christ adds: “Here is more than Solomon … here is more than Jonah” (Luke 11: 31 and 32), thereby pointing out that something new has entered the world—that it is not merely a matter of speaking to the etheric bodies from the outside through revelations, as in the case of Solomon, nor is it a matter of speaking to the etheric bodies from the inside through revelations that the astral body, when properly prepared, can communicate to the etheric body, as in the case of those symbolized by the sign of Jonah. Christ means to say: Here is something through which the human being, when he matures to it in his “I,” can connect with that which belongs to the realms of heaven, because the forces from the realms of heaven unite with the virginal part of the human soul that belongs to the realms of heaven, and which human beings can corrupt by turning away from the Christ principle, but which they can also nurture and cherish when they become imbued with what flows forth from the Christ principle.

[ 26 ] Thus, Christ Jesus—in the spirit of the Gospel of Luke—incorporates into his teaching that which came to Earth at that time as a new element, and we see how all the old ways of proclaiming the Kingdom of God were transformed by the events in Palestine. Therefore, he says to those whom he could assume were prepared enough to understand him to some extent: “Truly, there are some among you who cannot see the Kingdom of God in the manner that Solomon did—through revelation or through initiation in the sign of Jonah; if such people among you were to attain nothing else, they would never see the Kingdom of God in this incarnation; they would rather die.” — That is to say, they would not see the Kingdom of God before their death unless they were initiated; but then they would also have to undergo a state akin to death.

[ 27 ] But now the Christ wanted to show that there can also be people who, before they die, are able to see the realms of heaven through what has now come into the world as a new element. At first, the disciples did not understand what this meant. But he wanted to show them that they would be the ones who, before they died a natural death or that death which was formerly experienced during initiation, would come to know the mysteries of the realms of heaven. This is that wonderful passage in the Gospel of Luke where Christ speaks of a higher revelation and says:

“But I tell you the truth: there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the kingdom of heaven” (Luke 9:27).

[ 28 ] They did not understand that they, who were gathered around him, were chosen to experience the powerful effect of that “I”—the Christ Principle—through which they were to penetrate directly into the spiritual world. The spiritual world was to be revealed to them without the sign of Solomon and without the sign of Jonah. Did that happen?

[ 29 ] These words are immediately followed by the scene of the Transfiguration, in which three disciples—Peter, James, and John—are led up into the spiritual world and encounter what exists there as Moses and Elijah, as well as the Spiritual itself, which lives in Christ Jesus (Luke 9:28–36). For a moment, they gaze into the spiritual world to receive a testimony that one can gain insight into the spiritual world without the sign of Solomon and without the sign of Jonah. But at the same time, it becomes clear that they are still beginners: they fall asleep immediately after being torn from their physical and etheric bodies by the power of what is happening. Therefore, Christ finds them asleep. This was intended to demonstrate the third way of entering the spiritual world, apart from the one under the sign of Solomon and the one under the sign of Jonah. The one who understood how to interpret the signs of the times in those days knew precisely that the “I” had to develop, that it now had to be directly inspired, and that the divine forces had to act directly within the “I.”

[ 30 ] At the same time, however, it should be shown how the people of that era—even though they were exemplary individuals of the highest order—were not capable of assimilating the Christ Principle within themselves. A beginning was to be made in this regard at the Transfiguration, but at the same time it was to be shown that the disciples were not yet capable of fully embracing the Christ-principle. Therefore, their powers fail immediately afterward when they attempt to apply the Christ-principle to heal a man possessed by an evil spirit; yet they are unable to do so. Christ then points out that they are only at the beginning by saying: “I must remain with you for a long time yet, until your powers can also flow into other people” (Luke 9:41). And he then heals the one whom the disciples could not heal. But then, pointing out once more to them all that lay hidden as a mystery behind it, he says: “Now the time has come for the Son of Man to be delivered into the hands of men”—that is, where what human beings are to develop from within themselves during their earthly mission is to flow gradually into humanity, where the human “I” is to be handed over to human beings, which they are to recognize in its highest form, in Christ.

“Take these words to heart: the time has come for the Son of Man to be handed over to human hands.

But they did not understand this saying, and it was hidden from them so that they could not grasp it” (Luke 9:44–45).

[ 31 ] Well, how many people have understood this word to this day? But more and more people will come to understand this word—that back then, the “I,” the Son of Man, was to be handed over to the people. What could have been added as an explanation back then, Christ Jesus now adds as well. He says: As modern human beings stand before us, they are a product that arose from those ancient forces that were at work when no Luciferic beings had yet intervened in human beings; then the Luciferic forces came and pulled human beings down. All of this has become embedded in the faculties that are inherent in human beings today. Into everything that arises from the seed, that which drew humanity down into a lower sphere has become intermingled in human consciousness.

[ 32 ] Human beings are dual beings. However, the consciousness they have developed so far is entirely permeated by what came before—by the Luciferic forces. Only that which is governed by the unconscious in human beings is what, so to speak, as a final remnant from the evolution through Saturn, the Sun, and the Moon—when no Luciferic forces yet existed—flows into human beings today as a virgin part; but this cannot unite with the human being without what the human being can develop within themselves through the Christ principle. As human beings stand before us today, they are first and foremost a product of heredity, a convergence of what springs from the seeds. As they grow up in this way, they are, from the outset, a duality. However, this duality is already permeated by Luciferic forces. But as long as human beings are not yet illuminated by self-consciousness, as long as they cannot yet fully distinguish between good and evil from within their own “I,” they reveal to us, through the veil of what comes later, their earlier, their original nature. Only that which is childlike in modern human beings still retains a final remnant of the essence that human beings possessed before they succumbed to the influence of the Luciferic beings.

[ 33 ] Therefore, we now see the human being as having a “childlike” part and an “adult” part. The adult part is the one permeated by the Luciferic forces, but it exerts its influence from the very first embryonic stage. The Luciferic forces already permeate the child as well, so that in ordinary life, what was previously instilled in human beings—before the Luciferic influence—cannot come to the fore. The Christ force must reawaken this. The Christ force must unite with the best forces of the childlike nature within the human being. It must not take hold of the faculties that human beings have corrupted—that which stems from wisdom born of mere intellect—but rather it must take hold of what has remained from the ancient times of childlike nature. That is the best; it must regenerate that and, starting from there, fertilize the rest.

“But a question arose among them as to which of them was the greatest.”

[ 34 ] that is, who was best suited to internalize the Christ principle.

“But Jesus, knowing the thoughts of their hearts, took a child, placed it beside him, and said, ‘Whoever welcomes this child in my name,’”

[ 35 ] that is, anyone who, in the name of Christ, connects with what remains from the pre-Luciferian era —

“Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Luke 9:46–48),

[ 36 ] that is, the one who sent this part of the human being to Earth. There you emphasized the great importance of what has remained childlike in the human being and what should be cherished and nurtured in human nature.

[ 37 ] One might say: The person standing before me actually has quite good potential. One can make every effort to develop this potential, just as this person makes good progress in everyday life. The way things are done today, however, does not take into account what lies deep within the human being. But one should look to what remains childlike within the person, for it is through this childlike aspect—as a detour—that the other abilities are to be rekindled through the Christ-capacity. One must make the childlike aspect mature, so that from there the other abilities may also become mature. In this regard, everyone carries the childlike nature within themselves, and when this nature is active, it will also possess a receptivity to the connection with the Christ principle. But the forces that are under Luciferic influence—no matter how exalted they may be—will today, if they act alone within a person, reject and mock that which can live on Earth as the Christ force, just as Christ Himself foretold.

[ 38 ] Thus, precisely in the spirit of the Gospel of Luke, the meaning of the new proclamation is clearly presented to our souls. When one who bore the sign of Jonah on his forehead—an ancient initiate—walked among people, he was recognized as one who had a message to proclaim from the spiritual worlds. But only those who had been instructed knew what such a person looked like; it requires special preparation to understand the sign of Jonah. A new kind of preparation, however, was needed to bring about—more than the sign of Solomon and more than the sign of Jonah—a new way of understanding, a new way of bringing the soul to maturity. At first, the contemporaries of Christ Jesus could understand only the old way, and a way still familiar to most was what John the Baptist had brought. But the fact that Christ Jesus now brought something entirely new—that he sought out souls among those who did not at all resemble how such people had previously been imagined—was something completely foreign to the people. They had assumed that he would sit among those who were undergoing the old-style disciplines and would proclaim his teaching to them. Therefore, they could not understand why he sat among those whom they regarded as sinners. But he said to them: If I were to proclaim what I have to give to humanity as something entirely new in the old way, and if a completely new form were not to take the place of the old one, I would be doing the same thing as if I were sewing a new patch onto an old garment, or as if I were taking new wine and putting it into old wineskins. What is now to be given to humanity—and what is greater than the sign of Solomon or that of Jonah—must be poured into new wineskins, into new forms. And you must summon the will to understand the new message in a new form as well (Luke 5:36–37).

[ 39 ] Those who were to understand had to do so through the powerful influence of the “I”—not through what they had learned, but through what had flowed into them from the spiritual essence of Christ. But those who were prepared in the sense of the ancient teachings were not chosen for this; rather, it was those who had passed through incarnation after incarnation and yet appeared as simple people who could understand through the power of faith that had flowed into them. Therefore, a sign had to be set before them as well—one that unfolded before everyone’s eyes. What had taken place over centuries and millennia in the mystery temples as the passage through “mystical death” now had to unfold on the great stage of world history. Everything that had mysteriously occurred in the great initiation temples now came to light and stood there as a single event on Golgotha. What had otherwise only been revealed to the initiates during the three and a half days in which an ancient initiation had been performed now appeared before humanity in an intense manner. Therefore, anyone who knew the facts had to describe the events at Golgotha for what they were: the ancient initiation transformed into history and brought into the open arena of world history.

[ 40 ] That is what took place on Golgotha. What the few initiates had once witnessed in the temples of initiation—the three-and-a-half-day rest in a death-like state, through which they had gained the conviction that the spiritual will always overcome the physical, and that the soul-spiritual nature of human beings belongs to a spiritual world—was now to unfold before everyone’s eyes. The event at Golgotha is an initiation carried out on the stage of world history. This initiation, however, is not merely accomplished for those who stood around this event at that time, but for all of humanity. And what flowed forth from the death on the cross pours out from there into all of humanity. A stream of spiritual life emanates from the drops of blood that flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha, radiating out from there into all of humanity. For what flowed forth as wisdom from other teachers was meant to enter humanity as a power. This is the great difference between the event of Golgotha and the teachings of the other founders of religions.

[ 41 ] It requires a deeper understanding than is available today to properly grasp what happened on Golgotha at that time. That which the human “I” was physically attached to when Earth’s evolution began is blood. Blood is the outward expression of the human “I.” Human beings would have made their “I” stronger and stronger and, without the appearance of the Christ, would have entered into a development of egoism. They were preserved from this by the event at Golgotha. What had to flow? That which is the excess substance of the “I”—the blood—had to flow out. What began on the Mount of Olives, when the Saviour’s drops of sweat ran down like drops of blood, had to be continued as the blood flowed from the wounds of Christ Jesus on Golgotha. What flowed as blood at that time is the sign of what had to be sacrificed as the excess of egoism in human nature. Therefore, we must delve more deeply into the spiritual significance of the sacrifice on Golgotha. What happened on Golgotha is not transparent to the chemist—as a person with only an external, intellectual perspective. If someone had chemically analyzed the blood that flowed on Golgotha, they would have found the same substances in it as they would in the blood of other human beings. But whoever examines this blood through the methods of occult research will find that it is, in fact, a different kind of blood. It is the excess blood of humanity, through which people would have had to degenerate into selfishness had infinite love not come and allowed this blood to flow. Infinite love is mingled with the blood that flowed on Golgotha, and the occult researcher finds this infinite love permeating the blood on Golgotha entirely. And because the writer of the Gospel of Luke wanted in particular to describe how infinite love came into the world through Christ—love that is meant to gradually drive out selfishness—he remains within this role. Each evangelist describes precisely what he must describe according to his particular role.

[ 42 ] If we could shed even more light on these connections, we would find that all the contradictions that materialistic research might uncover would disappear—just as the contradictions in the early history of Jesus of Nazareth have been resolved by our understanding of the truth behind this account of his youth. Each of the Gospel writers describes what was particularly close to him from his own perspective; therefore, Luke describes what his informants—the “seers” and “servants of the Word”—were able to perceive based on their special training. The other evangelists perceive different things; the writer of the Gospel of Luke perceives what radiant love is—love that forgives even when the most terrible things are done to it in the physical world—so that the words that are the expression of this ideal of love still resound quite rightly from the cross of Golgotha — forgiveness even when the worst is done to one —: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). The one who accomplishes the infinite there on the cross of Golgotha implores forgiveness out of his infinite love for those who crucified him.

[ 43 ] And once again, the gospel of the power of faith. It should be emphasized that there is something in human nature that can flow out from it—something that need only be present to tear a person away from the sensory world, no matter how deeply connected he may be to it. Let us imagine a person who, through all manner of crimes, has become so intertwined with the sensory world that the judgment of the sensory world carries out the punishment; but let us imagine that he has preserved within himself that which allows the power of faith to take root; then he will differ from another who cannot allow this to take root within himself, just as one of the two criminals differed from the other. One has no faith; the judgment of punishment has been carried out upon him. The other, however, possesses this faith like a faint light shining into the spiritual world; therefore, he cannot lose his connection with the spiritual. That is why he must be told: “Today—while you know that you are connected to the spiritual world—you will be with me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43).

[ 44 ] Thus, the truths of faith and hope also resound alongside the truth of love from the Gospel of Luke, coming down from the cross.

[ 45 ] And there is one more thing to be fulfilled from that realm of the soul which the writer of the Gospel of Luke in particular seeks to describe to us. When a person is permeated by that love which flowed down from the cross on Golgotha, he can look into the future and say: On Earth, evolution must gradually take place in such a way that what lives within me as spirit will, little by little, transform the entire physical existence on Earth. What was there before the Luciferic influence—the Father-principle, the spirit we have received—we will gradually return to the Father-principle; but we will allow our entire spirit to be permeated by the Christ principle, and our hands will express what lives in our souls as a clear, distinct image. Just as our hands were created not by us but by the Father principle, so they will be permeated by the Christ principle. And as human beings pass through incarnation after incarnation, what flows down as the spiritual—from the Mystery of Golgotha into the Father Principle—will gradually flow into what human beings accomplish in their outer bodies, so that the outer world will be permeated by the Christ Principle. People will live out that serenity which resounded from the Cross of Golgotha and which leads to the highest hope for the future, to the ideal: I let faith sprout within me, I let love sprout within me; then faith and love will live within me, and I will know that when they are strong enough, they will permeate everything external. Then I will also know that the Father-principle within me will be permeated by them.—Hope for humanity’s future will be added to faith and love, and people will understand that they must cultivate that serenity as they look toward the future: If I have only faith, if I have only love, then I may give myself over to the hope that what is of Christ Jesus within me will gradually pass outward. Then people will understand the words that resound from the cross as a lofty ideal:

“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46).

[ 46 ] Thus do words of love, words of faith, and words of hope resound from the cross in the Gospel, which describes how the previously separate spiritual currents converged within the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. What had once become wisdom for humanity has now flowed into it as a power of the soul, as the high ideal of Christ. And it is the task of the human soul to understand ever more deeply what is proclaimed to us through a text such as the Gospel of Luke, so that the deeply penetrating tones contained in the three words that resound from the cross may become ever more alive within human souls. When people, through the spiritual truths that spiritual science can impart to us, develop within themselves the abilities to feel that what flows down to them from the cross is no longer a dead message but a living word, then they will say: We are beginning to grasp that a living word is contained in a religious text such as the one Luke wrote. In this way, spiritual science must gradually reveal what lies hidden in the religious texts.

[ 47 ] Through this series of lectures, we sought to explore as much as possible the profound meaning of the Gospel of Luke. Of course, even with this Gospel, a single series of lectures is not enough to reveal everything. You will therefore understand that much has remained unexplained, though we do not wish to emphasize that much must remain unexplained in a text with such universal content. But if you set out on the path that has been hinted at by this series of lectures, you will be able to penetrate ever deeper and deeper into such truths, and your souls will mature more and more to receive the living Word hidden beneath the outer words. Spiritual Science, or Theosophy, is not a new teaching. It is an instrument for comprehending what has been given to humanity from the very beginning. And so, for us, Spiritual Science is an instrument for comprehending the religious texts of the Christian revelation. If you understand Spiritual Science in this sense, you will no longer say: There is a Christian Theosophy; there is another Theosophy. — There is only one theosophy or spiritual science, only one instrument for proclaiming the truth. And we use it to unearth the treasures of humanity’s spiritual life. It is this same spiritual science that we apply to explain the Bhagavad Gita on one occasion and the Gospel of Luke on another. That is the greatness of the spiritual science movement: it can penetrate every treasure given to humanity in the spiritual realm; but we would misunderstand it if we were to close ourselves off from any of the revelations that have been given to humanity.

[ 48 ] It is precisely in this spirit that you should receive the message of the Gospel of Luke and understand how it is entirely permeated by the inspiration of love. Then what you will come to recognize more and more clearly in the Gospel of Luke through spiritual science will flow into your soul and help you not only to fathom the mysteries of the outer world and the spiritual foundations of existence, but from such an understanding of spiritual science—which can also permeate the Gospel of Luke—will flow to you the meaning of those powerful words: “And peace in the souls of men in whom good will dwells.” For more than any other text, the Gospel of Luke—when we fully understand it—is particularly suited to pouring that warm love into the human soul through which peace on earth lives, the most beautiful of the reflections that can appear when the divine mysteries are revealed on earth. What can be revealed must be reflected on earth and, through that reflection, ascend once more into the spiritual heights. If we learn to recognize spiritual science in this sense, then it will be able to reveal to us the mysteries of the divine-spiritual beings and of spiritual existence, and the reflection of these revelations will live in our souls—love and peace, the most beautiful reflection that reproduces on earth what flows to it from the heights.

[ 49 ] In this way, we can make the words of the Gospel of Luke our own—words that resound as the Buddha’s Nirmanakaya pours its power down upon the infant Jesus of Nazareth. The revelations pour down from the spiritual worlds onto the Earth, and these revelations are reflected from the hearts of human beings as love and peace to the extent that people unfold into what the Christ principle truly brings forth—the good will flowing from the human center, from the human “I.” This sounds bright, and at the same time, warmth flows from these words when we comprehend the Gospel of Luke:

“The revelation of the spiritual worlds from on high and their reflection from within human hearts brings peace to those who, on Earth, wish to develop true goodwill from within themselves as Earth’s evolution unfolds.”