The Rudolf Steiner Archive

7. The Gospels

[ 1 ] Today we will discuss a number of topics that have played a certain role in the current development of the spiritual movement within Germany. As you know—and as some of you have experienced firsthand—we have been discussing the various spiritual-scientific truths and insights based on the Gospels. We have discussed in various places what can be said in connection with the Gospel of John; we have also discussed what can be said in connection with the Gospel of Luke. Now, of course, not all of you have heard these things. Nor is the intention today to speak in a way that presupposes any prior knowledge of what has been said; rather, I simply wish to mention a few points from the broader scope of this field of spiritual science that must be important to everyone.

[ 2 ] It has often been mentioned here in Stuttgart that Christianity—and everything connected with it—has made a profound impact on the overall development of humanity, and that one cannot truly understand what is happening around us today, or what the human soul can experience today, without taking into account the full significance of the Christ event within our earthly history. For every single human soul, it is of infinite importance to come to know the significance of this event.

[ 3 ] Now, as you know, the story of Christ is recounted for humanity in four texts, the so-called four Gospels. You are familiar with all four of these texts and have certainly engaged with them in a variety of ways. These four texts—the Gospel according to Matthew, the Gospel according to Mark, the Gospel according to Luke, and the Gospel according to John—have fared in a wide variety of ways in the course of human development since the founding of Christianity. Human judgment and attitudes toward these four texts have undergone major transformations. If we first ask ourselves how these four texts appear to people today—even to contemporary theologians—the answer is quite obvious. One might say: First, we have the three texts of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. They at least—according to today’s general assessment—agree on certain points. But the fourth text, the Gospel of John, is quite different from these three. - At first glance, the Gospel of John leads people to say to themselves: If one regards the first three Gospels as historical documents—as accounts of the life of Jesus Christ—then the fourth Gospel contradicts the first three so fundamentally that one cannot regard this fourth as an account that corresponds to historical facts. - Thus, the view prevails that this fourth text is merely a writing springing from the confession of a man faithfully devoted to the mission of Jesus Christ—a kind of hymn flowing from the heart to express, in an enthusiastic manner, what the author had to say. The other three Gospels are also called the canonical Gospels because they attempt to provide a kind of historical account and because it is believed that they, in a certain way, reflect historical facts. However, if one insists on looking for contradictions that the external mind—bound to physical circumstances—seeks, then the first three Gospels truly present such contradictions as well. For are they not contradictions that the Gospel of Matthew tells of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, of a flight to Egypt, and of the appearance of the Magi from the East, whereas the Gospel of Luke, on the other hand, tells of a journey to Bethlehem, but completely omits what the Gospel of Matthew relates about the Magi, that it omits the flight to Egypt, and so on? We will not even go into the details of the three years of Christ Jesus’ ministry. We could find contradiction upon contradiction there.

[ 4 ] Now one might ask: How has the assessment of the Gospels actually evolved over the course of Christian history? Has it always been the case that people have looked at the Gospels and seen, above all else, the contradictions within them?—We must be clear about how this evolution of opinion regarding the Gospels has taken place. It has not been long since people have had the Gospels as readily available as they do today. The Gospels have only been widely disseminated among the general population for a short time. Before the invention of the printing press, the Gospels were essentially in the hands of only a few people—and certainly not the least discerning, but rather those who had studied them in the most scholarly manner, who had made them the focus of their lives. And it is not the case that, the further back in time we go, the more people would have said: “There are contradictions”—but the exact opposite is true. The further back we go, the more evident it becomes that these contradictions were not perceived; people had the four Gospels side by side and did not see the contradictions. The entire attitude that people had toward the Gospels was quite different in the first Christian centuries. If we were to characterize this attitude, we would have to say that the people of the early Christian centuries were filled with immense reverence for what is described in the Gospels. This entire atmosphere was permeated by a looking up to the great figure of Christ Jesus.

[ 5 ] How, then, were the Gospels received? How did people feel about the fact that the Gospel of Matthew tells a different story than, say, the Gospel of Luke? They felt much the same way as if today—I’ve already used this comparison in various lectures I’ve given here and there—as if someone were to photograph a tree from one side. Such a photograph provides a view of the tree. If one were to show it to people and try to create an impression of the tree based on it, that impression would be extremely one-sided. And one could hope to evoke a more accurate impression of the tree by photographing it from four sides. Then one would show four images of the same tree. These would correspond very little with one another; they would be very different. Nevertheless, no one would have the impression that it could not be that these four photographs were images of a single tree. Everyone would say: Only by depicting it from four sides can I form a reasonably complete picture of the tree. - This is roughly how people in the early Christian centuries felt about the Gospels. They said: The entire great event is described from four different perspectives, and we get a complete picture of it when we truly take these four accounts together and thereby form, so to speak, an overall view. We must, however, be clear about how these four perspectives actually relate to one another. It is indeed the great event described from four different perspectives. If one wants to understand what each individual perspective describes, one must first clarify the following.

[ 6 ] Before us stands a mighty Individuality, Jesus Christ—an Individuality about whom we know, from the descriptions we have already given here, that he descended from the spiritual world and appeared in Palestine at the beginning of our era. What came to Earth as an individual now appears as a great, all-encompassing ideal for every single human being. The individual human being, so to speak, strives upward by sensing, in infinite distance above himself, that perfection in an individual expressed in Christ Jesus, and strives toward this ideal. At first, a person sees what they can regard as their aspiration in intellectual and moral terms, and so on. But they see even more when they enter into what we call the spiritual science movement. There they see the development into the spiritual world. They know that human beings can grow beyond their ordinary selves, that they can grow to the point of seeing into the spiritual world, that they can develop their spiritual senses in order to live their way up into the spiritual world. Human beings recognize this. In the essay “How Does One Attain Knowledge of the Higher Worlds?”, you described one aspect of this ascent—this entry into the spiritual worlds—to some extent; in particular, you described what is called “splitting of the personality.” When a person develops spiritually to the point where they gradually grow into the spiritual worlds and become a seer themselves, something akin to a kind of split personality does indeed occur. The personality initially expresses three forces: thinking, feeling, and willing. In the ordinary person, these three forces are, so to speak, united; they work together—thinking, feeling, and willing. You go out into the meadow, see a flower—that is, you form an image of the flower; you have thought. You like the flower; you call it beautiful—that is, you have felt. A feeling has become connected with your thinking. You pick the flower and bring it home—that is, you have desired it. And this is essentially how a person’s entire outer life unfolds. They imagine, think, feel, and will, and these three intertwine. Imagination gives rise to feeling, which in turn gives rise to will—or aversion—and the like. When a person now evolves upward into the higher worlds, developing clairvoyance and participation in the spiritual worlds, a separation of these three forces takes place. For those who have reached a certain level of clairvoyant consciousness, not every thought evokes a feeling; rather, the thought occurs in isolation, and the feeling can occur in isolation, and the will can occur in isolation. And precisely because the human being is, so to speak, then divided into three beings—whereas thinking, feeling, and willing are otherwise merely forces within the soul—the human being must become all the stronger in his individuality. He must not only balance these three forces, but also become master of three beings: a willing being, a feeling being, and a thinking being. He must be the leader of a host of these three beings. He must bring order; he must master them, otherwise something evil will happen: that willing will pull him in one direction and thinking in another, and he will then be truly divided and will no longer be able to find his way. Therefore, human beings must grow stronger within themselves, become powerful, so that they can be masters of the entities that have arisen from their soul forces. When human beings thus develop upward into the higher worlds, they split, so to speak, into three distinct entities. When these entities come toward us from above, from the spiritual worlds, and we see them in their true nature—which can only be perceived through spiritual contemplation—they appear from the very beginning as sharply distinct: thinking beings, willing beings, and feeling beings. This is what human beings develop them into.

[ 7 ] This was especially true of that great individual who came to us as the Christ. That is why those who first described the Christ said to themselves: One cannot describe the Christ by choosing just a single point of view; one must describe him first as a thinking being filled with wisdom, then as a willing being, and then as a feeling being. One must describe him from the standpoint of wisdom, from the standpoint of the will, and from the standpoint of feeling. That is how one must describe him, people said. And they were particularly well-prepared for this by the entire system of education that was customary in ancient times. If a person was to be developed at all to ascend into the higher worlds—today something else is necessary for the first stages of attaining higher knowledge; in ancient times, a different approach was taken—if someone was ripe to be led upward, so to speak, to be made a citizen of the spiritual worlds, then it was said: “Well, he is ready to be led up into the higher worlds. But let us take a closer look at him! Should we develop wisdom, the powers of thought, or the will in him in particular?”

[ 8 ] In the ancient mystery schools, not all powers were developed equally; rather, depending on the individual’s karma, the focus was placed on developing thinking into clairvoyance in one person, feeling into clairsentience in another, and willing into magical power in a third. For this reason, the ancient mystery schools had three classes of developed abilities: there were students in whom the ability to see through to the spiritual world with wisdom was particularly developed—these were the people in the mysteries whom one consulted when one wanted to know what the facts in the higher worlds were and how they were lawfully interconnected. If we want to use a colloquial expression today, we could say that they were the experts in knowledge within the mysteries. Then there was another class of initiates. In them, feeling was particularly developed. In order for this feeling to be developed to a high degree, the training of knowledge and will was set aside in their case, and feeling was developed on its own. When feeling is particularly cultivated in a person, that person becomes what is almost entirely unknown today: a healer, a physician. For in ancient times, the physician exerted a spiritual influence emanating much more from the spheres of feeling and healed the receptive soul through a more highly developed sense of feeling than is the case today. This was the second class of initiates. They had developed their feeling to the highest degree of self-sacrifice, to the point of devoting all the powers they possessed. They simply divided the work among themselves. If one wanted to know what was wrong with someone, one went to those who had developed wisdom. They determined what was lacking and what needed to be done. Then came those who could not say what was wrong with the sick person, because their capacity for thinking had not been developed; but they came and offered their powers, because they had developed their powers of feeling. These were also the people who had other roles, such as demonstrating their willingness to sacrifice in the event of misfortunes or similar occurrences. The third category of initiates was the magicians. These were the ones who had developed the sphere of will. They were responsible for taking the external measures. The magicians had developed the powers of will and were able to carry out what needed to be done. Thus there were three kinds of initiates: initiates of thinking, initiates of feeling, and initiates of will. And a fourth class or category consisted of those in whom an attempt was made, in a certain sense, to develop something from each of the remaining three—something from thinking, something from feeling, and something from willing. Consequently, they did not advance as far in any one area as the others did; but in their case, it became evident—as it does with a certain initiation into the three spheres—how these things are interconnected. Thus there were powerful initiates of wisdom, powerful initiates of sacrificial service, powerful initiates of magic, and a fourth category that possessed, so to speak, something of each of the first three.

[ 9 ] When it came time to describe Christ Jesus, so to speak, from all angles—this can be explained in more detail another time; today it can only be done in broad strokes—four people emerged who described the qualities naturally united in him from their respective four perspectives. One of them, in particular, was initiated into the mysteries of thought. He described in Christ Jesus those qualities that such a person—an initiate of wisdom—could understand in particular. He left out the other aspects. Another was an initiate of feeling. He described Christ Jesus from the perspective of feeling, so to speak, as a physician, as a healer. A third was an initiate of magic. He described the powers that Christ could unleash to organize all of humanity. And a fourth was an initiate of the fourth class, in whom the powers worked together in harmony. He focused primarily on the human work of Christ Jesus. He did not see the full power of wisdom, of sacrificial service, nor the mighty magical strength of Christ Jesus’ willpower; but he saw how the three forces of thinking, feeling, and willing came together harmoniously in Christ Jesus. He described the human being Christ Jesus.

[ 10 ] Thus we have described Christ Jesus from the perspective of four initiates. The one who described Christ Jesus as an initiate of wisdom was the writer of the Gospel of John; the one who described him as an initiate of feeling was the writer of the Gospel of Luke; the one who described him in terms of magical power was the writer of the Gospel of Mark; and the one who described the harmonious interplay of the three lower human members was the writer of the Gospel of Matthew. Thus, each one described that aspect of Christ Jesus in which he himself was initiated.

[ 11 ] In this way, we will come to understand that we can gain a complete picture of Christ Jesus because the four Gospels each describe what was particularly close to the hearts of the four individuals who served as the basis for them. Anyone who has the necessary reverence for such a great individual as Christ was will say: It is precisely through this—that the writers of the Gospels, each one, gave the best they were able to give—that I can gain a comprehensive picture. Therefore, however, it is also necessary that you not always take what is said in spiritual science in reference to the four Gospels—whether the fourth, the third, the second, or the first—as though each such chapter contained the entire truth about Christ Jesus. The impression might easily have arisen from the various lectures that have been given here and there: “Now Christ Jesus has been portrayed, and at most it would still be interesting to portray him in connection with another Gospel.” That is not the case. After all, one only gets a one-sided picture when describing Christ Jesus based on a single Gospel. We must wait until, in the course of our spiritual movement, Christ Jesus has been described in connection with all four Gospels. Only then will you have what needs to be said about the complete mysteries concerning him.

[ 12 ] Now it will be up to us to start from a certain one-sided account in order to once again, so to speak, piece together a picture of Christ Jesus—though in such a way that you must truly adhere to what has just been said. You must not leave this lecture today and say: “Well, now we have the truth about these things”—but rather you must tell yourselves: “It has now been described from one point of view, and the other must be added and illuminated by what is said from other points of view.”

[ 13 ] In Christ Jesus we indeed find a convergence of all of humanity’s earlier spiritual currents and, at the same time, a rebirth of those currents. In Christ Jesus, all spiritual currents converge and are reborn—reborn to a higher degree. Now we could mention many such currents from the pre-Christian era that we encounter in spiritual science when considering the four Gospels—currents that we see converging in the Christ event; but for now, we will draw attention to only three of them.

[ 14 ] First, there is a powerful spiritual current that has been active in Asia since time immemorial. This is the one we might call Zoroastrianism. A second spiritual current is the one that flourished in India and reached a certain high point with the appearance of Gautama Buddha, six hundred years before our era. A third spiritual current is the one that found expression among the ancient Hebrew people. Thus, in Christ Jesus, the ancient Hebrew spiritual current, that which found its fulfillment in Gautama Buddha, and that which was associated with the name of Zarathustra all converge. We could mention many more such spiritual currents, but that would make the matter too confusing.

[ 15 ] In a certain sense, the four Gospels reveal—if we truly understand them correctly—everything that actually took place in Palestine at the beginning of our era. It is not the task of spiritual science to draw from the Gospels what they have to say. Nothing at all of what I say is derived from the Gospels. The only source for the spiritual researcher is what is called the Akashic Records—that which can be observed clairvoyantly. If all the Gospels were lost due to some catastrophe, everything that is said about the Christ in spiritual science could still be stated. This is based on spiritual research. Only afterward is what this spiritual research yields compared with what is written in the Gospels. And it is precisely this that inspires that objective reverence for the Gospels when one sees what, in turn, comes back to meet one from the Gospels. You must never lose sight of this point of view. For nothing at all is derived from the Gospels; therefore, what I am now recounting is not derived from the Gospels either. But we can compare it afterward with what is written in the Gospels, and we will find it to be in agreement.

[ 16 ] One of the spiritual currents that subsequently flowed into Christianity is the one that reached its peak in the personality who was incarnated in India as Gautama Buddha about six hundred years before our era. What kind of individuality is this? We can understand this individuality if we bear the following in mind: Everything that has gradually emerged in the course of human development is precisely a product that develops and gradually takes root. You would be mistaken if you believed that the abilities of modern human beings had always existed. Today, for example, there is such a thing as the voice of conscience. That has not always existed. We can practically pinpoint exactly when conscience arose in the course of human development. If you go back to Aeschylus, you will find no description of conscience in his works. It is only in Euripides that a description of conscience appears. The Greek concept of conscience, then, developed between these two authors. What people today call an “inner voice” has only recently developed. Before that, there was, so to speak, a kind of clairvoyant consciousness within humanity. If a person did something they shouldn’t have done, an image would appear to them—like a spirit of vengeance—and it would pursue them. This was what the Greeks called the Furies. They truly saw the consequences and the avenging spirits of their evil deeds all around them. This phenomenon, which existed outside the human being, was drawn into the human soul as the voice of conscience. And so the other human faculties, too, gradually came into being; and it is merely a short-sightedness on the part of people who cannot see beyond the ends of their noses—as, so to speak, external science often does—to believe that human beings have always been as they are today.

[ 17 ] Thus, people did not have what we might call the doctrine of compassion and love. We must therefore imagine that the way compassion and love were taught in ancient times was quite different from today. Today, a person can, so to speak, look within. When this or that happens in the outside world, they can allow the feeling of compassion and love to well up within themselves, and they know that this is good. They can find the principles of love and compassion within themselves. This was not the case in earlier times; rather, in those days, people were taught how to behave purely through suggestion by those entrusted with this task. People themselves had to be guided. There were individual leaders and guides of humanity who pointed out how people were to behave. It was the leaders of humanity who dictated what was to be done as acts of love and compassion. And those who were thus the guides in the realm of love and compassion were, in turn, under higher guides, and all together under one guide, whom we call the Bodhisattva of Love and Compassion. His mission was to convey the teaching of compassion and love. But this Bodhisattva, who was the guide in matters of compassion and love, was not like an ordinary incarnated human being; rather, his entire being was not absorbed into the physical human form. He had, so to speak, a bridge connecting him to the spiritual world.

[ 18 ] The Bodhisattva of compassion and love lived only partly within the physical human being; the rest of his spiritual being extended upward into the spiritual worlds. From there, he transmitted the impulses he was to instill. If we were to describe this spiritually, we would have to say: The clairvoyant saw the image of the human being in whom the Bodhisattva was partly embodied, and behind this, a powerful spiritual-astral figure that reached up into the spiritual worlds and was only partly within the physical body. - Such was this Bodhisattva. This Bodhisattva was the very same one who was later reborn as the prince Gautama Buddha in India; for this Bodhisattva, this was, so to speak, an ascent to a higher dignity. Previously, he had, so to speak, allowed himself to be guided from above, had received the impulses from the spiritual world, and had passed them on. In this incarnation, however—six hundred years before our era—he was elevated to the dignity of a Buddha at the age of twenty-nine; that is to say, in this incarnation he experienced his entire individuality entering into the physical body. Whereas earlier, as a Bodhisattva, he had to remain partially outside in order to build a bridge, the progress toward Buddhahood lay in the fact that he was fully incarnated within the body. Through this, he was able not only to receive the teaching of compassion and love through inspiration, but also to look within himself and receive this teaching as the very voice of his own heart. This was the Buddha’s enlightenment in the twenty-ninth year of his life beneath the Bodhi tree. It was then that the teaching of compassion and love dawned upon him, independent of any connection to the spiritual world, as an inherent quality of the human soul—that he could conceive of the teaching of compassion and love, which he articulated in the Eightfold Path. And the sermon that followed is the great teaching of compassion and love, proclaimed for the first time from a human heart.

[ 19 ] This is how it must be with every human ability. At some point in human evolution, an ability must first come to expression in a single individual; only then can it begin to develop gradually among human beings as a distinct ability of their own. The teaching of compassion and love could only be experienced as something that a person draws from within themselves after it had first been brought forth by an individual. In Eastern philosophy, this is called “turning the wheel”—the wheel of Dharma, of compassion, and of love. This came about through the full individuality of the Bodhisattva sinking into the prince Gautama Buddha. From that point on, there have been people who can discover the teaching of compassion and love within themselves. And it will develop in such a way that more and more people will discover within themselves the teaching of compassion and love, and approximately three thousand years after our era, there will be a sufficient number of people living on Earth who will develop in their own hearts what the Buddha discovered. Then the Buddha’s mission in this regard on Earth will be fulfilled. For back when the Bodhisattva descended to become a Buddha, another being assumed the title of Bodhisattva. Until then, what we now call the Buddha was a Bodhisattva. The rank immediately following that of the Bodhisattva is that of the Buddha. From the state of Bodhisattva, the ascending being becomes a Buddha.

[ 20 ] Eastern philosophy expressed this by saying: When the Bodhisattva descended to Earth, he handed over the Bodhisattva’s crown to his successor. This successor still lives today as a Bodhisattva. He will not ascend to Buddhahood until three thousand years from the present. This is the one whom Eastern philosophy calls the Maitreya Buddha. He is a Bodhisattva today and will be the Maitreya Buddha in three thousand years. He has a different mission than the Gautama Buddha, one connected to things that people today are not yet able to discover on their own. This is a line of development. So we can say: That Bodhisattva, who embodies the teaching of compassion and love, has indeed ascended to Buddhahood, and in doing so, he has given his mission a tremendous impetus. By being present in a human body with his entire being at that time—six hundred years before our era—he earned the right to no longer be incarnated in a physical body on Earth. In fact, that incarnation was the last incarnation of this Bodhisattva. He no longer needed to incarnate in a physical body, but only needed to descend to the etheric body. All subsequent incarnations of the Buddha are therefore not such that he can be seen outwardly on the physical plane, but such that he can only be seen through those powers that enable human beings to perceive the etheric body. Throughout the entire period that followed, therefore, the Buddha incarnated only in an etheric body. Six hundred years after his presence on Earth, he allowed what he had to bring to humanity to flow into what had been initiated by Christianity. He offered, so to speak, as a sacrifice to the emerging Christianity what he had to bring; he allowed it to flow in as a spiritual tributary into the great main current. This is the current that reaches its culmination in the Buddha. This is the one current.

[ 21 ] Another one came about in the following way. We can get a sense of it if we consider the development of humanity itself a little more closely. As you all know, after the great Atlantean catastrophe, people did not possess the same abilities they have today; rather, after the great Atlantean catastrophe, they still retained remnants of an ancient, dim form of clairvoyance. Logical thinking developed only gradually. The culture we refer to as ancient Indian was entirely a culture that arose from etheric clairvoyance. The Zoroastrian culture, too, was still one in which people worked with this ancient, twilight-like clairvoyance, and the Chaldean-Egyptian cultures were also not yet cultures in which people thought as we do today. Everything was still inspiration; it was not yet permeated by logic, but rather consisted of more or less inspired imagination, as was evident in Chaldean astrology and the wisdom of Hermes. The human capacity for logical thinking had not yet developed in these cultures. Rather, it was reserved for an entirely different current to develop precisely what one might call logical culture or a culture of thought. The first post-Atlantean culture still arose entirely from etheric clairvoyance. The Zoroastrian culture, too, was still such a culture, albeit no longer as pronounced. Likewise, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture was still based on inspiration. The thinking of that time was not yet permeated by logic; it was interwoven with imaginations that found expression in magnificent images in the astrology of the Chaldeans and in the Hermetic wisdom of Egypt.

[ 22 ] Post-Atlantic cultures emerged from two waves of migration. Aside from the one that headed west and populated what is now the Americas, two streams of migrants, led by their leaders, flowed eastward—one heading north and the other south.

[ 23 ] The northern wave, parts of which remained in Europe, advanced further into Asia. While new cultures were taking shape and unfolding there, the European population lived through the centuries as if in a state of waiting. Their energies were, as it were, reserved for what was to come. In their essential cultural elements, they were influenced by that great Initiate who had chosen this field as his domain all the way into the Siberian regions, and who is known to the Initiates as Skythianos. The leaders of the European primordial culture were inspired by him; this culture was not based on what entered humanity as “thought,” but on a receptivity to an element that stood midway between what one might call recitative-rhythmic speech and a kind of song, accompanied by a peculiar music that no longer exists today but was based on the interplay of flute-like instruments. It was a peculiar element, the last vestige of which lived on in the bards and skalds. Everything recounted in the Greek myths of Apollo and Orpheus developed from this source. Alongside this, practical skills were developed in Europe through settlement, cultivation, and so on.

[ 24 ] The other great masses of people migrated to Asia under the leadership of the great Sun-Initiate. The most advanced outpost, under the leadership of the Rishis, formed the first post-Atlantean civilization. Further on in the Near East, the oldest Zoroastrian culture developed; yet this is not a reference to the historical Zoroaster. What he brought about is, in a certain sense, the opposite of ancient Indian culture. The latter was built entirely upon etheric clairvoyance; Zoroaster turned his gaze toward the Sun. He beheld the Spirit of the Sun, the “great aura,” Ahura Mazda. It was Zoroaster who was the first to give expression here to the distinctive characteristics of northern culture. Everything that followed is built upon this.

[ 25 ] The other wave that had come over—the southern one—formed the basis for the Chaldean-Egyptian culture, which arose from the fusion of the two. This can be represented schematically: the Indian period signifies the development of the human etheric body; during the Persian period, the sensory body developed; the Egyptian-Chaldean culture gave rise to the sensory soul; it is essentially an inner culture, undergoing an inner process. And just as the sensory body and the sensory soul unite, so too is this the case for all of humanity. This is particularly evident in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. The same will be true of the soul of consciousness and the spiritual self. This can only occur through the transition of advancing culture into that region where spirituality had previously been held back: it can only happen in Europe. There, the development toward the intellectual soul and the conscious soul had still been held back and only unfolded after the Christ event. It is there, too, that the fusion with the qualities of the spiritual self will be able to take place in the future. This can only happen through a spiritual current such as that of spiritual science. This is what the sixth period of our culture will bring.

[ 26 ] While the two movements described were still under the influence of the old, twilight-like clairvoyance, the third movement—which merged with the others and prepared the way for the Christ event—was followed by a fourth cultural movement that could be called a logical-rational one. To ensure that we understand each other perfectly, you must bear in mind that all clairvoyance arises when the etheric body—specifically the etheric body of the brain—functions independently in a certain way. Where the etheric body of the brain and the physical instrument of logical thinking are tightly bound together, clairvoyance cannot occur. Only when the etheric body retains something to remain independent can clairvoyance arise. When the etheric body of the brain is completely linked to the physical brain, it works out the brain in the most subtle way; but it also engages in the development of the physical brain, and nothing remains to develop clairvoyance as well. It was necessary, however, for precisely that ability to find its way into humanity which is bound up with cerebral thinking—the synthesizing of worldly phenomena through the brain. For this to happen, something had to occur within humanity that can be characterized as follows: it had to be selected from humanity precisely—well, let us take an individual in whom, so to speak, that which was formerly called clairvoyance was least present, but in whom, on the other hand, the physical instrument of the brain was developed, refined, and honed to the highest degree. This individual was capable of surveying the phenomena of the external physical world in terms of measure, number, order, and harmony, and of seeking unity within the outwardly manifold phenomena. So while all members of earlier cultures knew something of the spiritual world, so to speak, through inner inspiration, this individual had to direct his gaze outward toward the realm of phenomena; he had to combine, weigh things logically, and say to himself: Out there are the phenomena; everything arranges itself into a harmony when one surveys it all in a great picture of unity. - That which appeared there as unity appeared as unity in the external world—as the God behind the phenomena of the physical plane. This was a difference from other conceptions of God. The other contemplators of God said to themselves: “Our conception of God arises from within.” This individual, however, directed his gaze in every direction, organized the phenomena, observed the various realms of nature, and brought them under a single unity; in short, he was the great organizer of worldly phenomena according to measure and number, chosen from among all of humanity. This individual, who was chosen from all of humanity to be the first to survey the outer physical world and find the unity within it, was Abraham. Abraham—or Abram—was the one who was, so to speak, chosen by the spiritual-divine powers to receive this special mission: to convey to humanity the forces bound to the measure and number of outer phenomena. He emerged from Chaldean culture. Chaldean culture itself had developed its astrology through clairvoyance. Abraham, the forefather of arithmetic, emerged to discover all of this through combination—by virtue of the fact that the physical brain had, in this instance, undergone a very special refinement. Through this, a very special mission was entrusted to him.

[ 27 ] Now we must consider: How the mission was to unfold—that was not to remain with him alone, but was to become the common heritage of humanity. But since thought was bound to the physical brain, how could it become the common heritage? It could only become the common heritage by being truly transmitted through physical heredity. That is to say, a people had to emerge from this very individuality, within which this particular characteristic would be inherited, as long as it was to be incorporated into humanity as a mission. A people had to emerge from it. A people therefore had to be established—not merely a culture where something had been taught: what one has received through clairvoyance can be taught. What humanity was now to receive had to be transmitted to future generations through physical heredity so that it could take root in every detail. What was to take root? What was to take root was the ability to discover, through human reasoning, that order which was first brought into humanity by Abraham. When one looks up at the order of the stars, one can discover that order through reasoning. The sages of Chaldean astrology had pondered the thoughts of the gods. Now the task was to find this particular transition to combination—to the logical grasping of phenomena—in the external world. Thus, a quality had to be inherited into the physical human body that, through the work of thought, would itself yield what is spread out as order throughout the cosmos. This is beautifully expressed when the one who entrusts this mission to Abraham says: “Your descendants shall be arranged according to the order, according to the number of the stars”—which the Bible nonsensically translates as: “Your descendants shall be like the sand of the sea.” For it means that there is to be an arrangement within Abraham’s descendants; the descendants are to be structured in such a way that they reflect the stars in the heavens. This is also expressed in the twelve sons of Jacob. They are a reflection of the twelve constellations. Here the proportions come into play that are prefigured in the heavens. The lineage is meant to reflect the number in the heavens. Just as the number is inscribed in the heavens, so too is the order of the number inscribed in the lineage. This is the profound wisdom contained in these words, which have been foolishly translated as: “Your descendants shall be like the sand of the sea.”

[ 28 ] So we see, then, the meaning of this entire mission of Abraham. But in other ways, too, this entire mission wonderfully and symbolically expresses that which is meant to be a reflection of the mysteries of the world. First, let us ask ourselves the following: What is to be sacrificed, so to speak, is precisely that which is the old, twilight-like clairvoyance. Everything that has been established in humanity since the earliest times is to be sacrificed. This is to be the innermost attitude in this entire mission: that everything is received as a gift from outside. What is to come into being is to come about through physical offspring. Through them, this mission is to enter the world. Abraham must himself receive this as a gift from God. This happens when he is first called upon to sacrifice his son Isaac and is then prevented from doing so. What does he actually receive there from the hand of God? There he receives his entire mission. For if he had truly sacrificed Isaac, he would have sacrificed his entire mission. He regains his people by regaining Isaac. He receives that which he is actually meant to give to the world; he receives it as a gift of the divine world order in Isaac. Thus, everything that follows Abraham is a gift from God Himself. The last remnant of the gift of clairvoyance—you will come to understand later how the individual gifts of clairvoyance manifest themselves; each one can be related to one of the constellations—the last of these gifts, which was voluntarily sacrificed, is linked to the constellation of Aries. That is why we see Aries in the sacrifice of Isaac. This is a symbolic expression of the sacrifice of the last clairvoyant gift in exchange for the gift of being able to judge external worldly phenomena by number and measure. This is Abraham’s mission.

[ 29 ] And how does this mission continue? The last gift of clairvoyance is sacrificed; it must be cast out of this mission, and even if it still manifests as an inheritance, it is, so to speak, not tolerated within the line that is currently continuing. Joseph experiences a relapse. He has his dreams; he possesses the old gift of clairvoyance. His brothers cast him out. This reveals just how strictly this entire mission was organized: Joseph is cast out. He journeys to Egypt to establish precisely the connection that was now necessary—the connection with the other wing of our entire cultural development, with Egyptian culture. Joseph had united within himself that which was of a general nature within this mission and, at the same time, remnants of the ancient gift of clairvoyance. He brought about a complete upheaval in Egypt by correcting the declining Egyptian culture in accordance with his gift of clairvoyance. He placed his gift in the service of external institutions. This is what underlies Joseph’s cultural mission in Egypt.

[ 30 ] And now we witness a peculiar spectacle. Now we see how those who, as missionaries, were concerned with external thought in terms of measure and number, are no longer following the old path; just as they, through Joseph, sought precisely the external context by looking in Egypt for the reflection of what they could not produce from within themselves. So they go there, and there they take it in—the descendants of Abraham take in what they need in Egypt. That is why they are able to do so. So they go there. What is now necessary for the further organization of this mission—since it cannot be brought forth from within—is provided from the outside through the Egyptian initiation. Moses brings this from the outside and connects Egyptian culture with this special mission of Abraham. And now we see how this is passed down from generation to generation: the human grasp of the external world, the perception of the external world in terms of measure, weight, and number. A new element has entered. It is transmitted through blood kinship and can only be passed on in this way, for it is bound to what must be inherited. This is the second of the currents.

[ 31 ] The third of these currents is the one that follows in the footsteps of Zarathustra; it is what found expression in ancient Persian culture and spread onward to the Near East—something we have already encountered in the various lectures. It is these three currents that converge in Christ Jesus. The individuality that is Christ Jesus had to engage with all three currents. They must unite within him. How does this happen? It happens in the following complex way. First of all, we must bear in mind that the event intended to flow into the general world current took place in India six hundred years before our era. At about the same time, something also took place within the Babylonian-Chaldean culture through the reappearance of Zarathustra under the name Zarathos or Nazarathos in ancient Chaldea. There he lived and worked as a great teacher precisely at the time when some of the chosen teachers and leaders of the ancient Hebrew people were taken into Babylonian captivity, for this period also includes the time when the Jews were taken into captivity. There you can see how the first contact between the Hebrew people and Zarathos took place at that time, and how the Hebrew people, through their members, stood under the personal influence of the reborn Zarathustra or Zoroaster. The events unfolded just as they are described in the Bible. The following occurred. At the beginning of our era, there were two sets of parents, both named Joseph and Mary. One set lived in Nazareth, the other in Bethlehem. The husband of one set was descended from the Solomonic line of the House of David—that was the husband of the Bethlehemite couple. The other couple in Nazareth descended from the Nathanic line of the House of David. Solomon and Nathan were the two sons of David. - Both sets of parents had a son. The Nazareth couple gave birth to the boy Jesus from Nazareth, as described in the Gospel of Luke, and the Bethlehem couple gave birth to the boy Jesus from Bethlehem, as described in the Gospel of Matthew. Thus, at the beginning of our era, we have two boys named Jesus.

[ 32 ] Let us trace the story of the infant Jesus of Bethlehem! How did he actually come into being, so to speak, as a physical child? As a physical child, we see him descending from the physical lineage that the writer of the Gospel of Matthew so beautifully traces back to Abraham. We would have to trace the journey from Ur in Chaldea to the land of Canaan, then on to Egypt, and back again to Canaan. That would roughly correspond to the journey of the Israelite people from Chaldea to Palestine, on to Egypt, and back again. These were the ancestors of the infant Jesus of Bethlehem. And because he carried the blood of these ancestors within him, he underwent this journey, so to speak. That individuality which now sought to incarnate itself in this Jesus child of Bethlehem swiftly retraced the same path, albeit in abbreviated form. This was the very individuality that had worked as Zarathustra in ancient Chaldea. Thus, at the very moment the infant Jesus of Bethlehem was born, a spiritual individuality came into being that first spiritually retraced Abraham’s exact path from Chaldea to Canaan. Here it was born into the infant Jesus of Bethlehem. Then it had to briefly retrace the journey to Egypt and back again later, until it settled in Nazareth. There you have the individuality that, so to speak, spiritually underwent the entire journey of the people of Israel. You can trace this journey, as described in the Bible, and you will find that it is true. The Bible describes it better than any external historical record. What can be found in the Akashic Records through clairvoyant vision is corroborated by the Bible: the journey the Israelite people undertook from Chaldea to Canaan, across to Egypt, and back. And the parallels are remarkable throughout. Who led the Jews to Egypt? Joseph’s dreams led them there. Who led the infant Jesus of Bethlehem to Egypt? The dreams of another Joseph—his father. These parallels extend down to such details. It is, once again, a special clairvoyant gift that has been preserved, one that establishes the connection.

[ 33 ] Thus, the individuality of Zarathustra is born into these Bethlehemite children of Jesus after they have received the element that came into humanity through Abraham by inheritance. And those who were connected to Zarathustra in the Chaldean mystery schools are now following the path. In the spiritual world, their star goes before them: Zoroaster himself, who is going to be born in Bethlehem. You can follow them—the three Magi—who appear in the Bible. They know him, the one who lives within the Bethlehem child Jesus.

[ 34 ] This is one of the Jesus children, the one from Bethlehem. In the other Jesus child—who was born in Bethlehem only by virtue of a journey there—something entirely different is at work; something that reveals itself simply by the fact that this Jesus child was, in all his characteristics, different from the Jesus child from Bethlehem. From the very beginning, the Jesus child from Bethlehem revealed himself to be a person of extraordinary talent, far surpassing any human measure, for he possessed a powerful individuality. He was gifted in everything that humanity had thus far attained in terms of cultural achievements. He showed himself to be extraordinarily gifted in everything that could be learned from his surroundings. The Nazarene boy Jesus, however, was not at all gifted in the external aspects of culture. He possessed only a deep, deep, soulful inner life. It was precisely this quality of soulfulness that was developed within him. He was not, however, gifted to learn what was available externally in terms of cultural achievements. He had no inclination toward them. He possessed something—regarding the distinction between good and evil—that people cannot even begin to comprehend. But the culture that had developed on earth was alien to him. It was alien to him because something had been born within him that had not been part of the entire course of human development.

[ 35 ] We can understand this if we consider the following. In the ancient Lemurian era, what we call the Luciferic influence took place within humanity. At that time, the Luciferic forces crept into the human astral body. As a result, humanity became what it has become. At that time, the guiding forces had to set aside a portion of the human etheric body so that it would not be infected by everything that the astral body—which was under the Luciferic influence—could impart to it. A part of the etheric body was thus withdrawn from the influence of the astral body in that human beings retained influence over their etheric body only insofar as they are beings of will and feeling, but not in regard to anything related to thinking. This was, so to speak, set aside and guided down from above out of the spiritual-divine world. Therefore, from the very beginning of their existence on Earth, human beings have, so to speak, their individual desires and personal feelings, yet they could not have their own personal thoughts, nor the expression of personal thoughts—language. Thinking was of a kind that was guided in the same way for all through a pervasive spirituality. As a result, everyone thinks alike. But language, too, was at least guided by the folk gods, so that not every human being has his or her own language. Thus, that which is expressed in the spirit of language was, in relation to the etheric body, removed from the arbitrariness of the individual personality; it was withheld. What was withheld back then in the Lemurian era is recounted in the myth of Paradise: Humanity partook of the Tree of Knowledge, but not of the Tree of Life; it gained its own free will with regard to volition; but what was not given to humanity back then was now transmitted through mysterious processes to this Jesus child, the Nazarene Jesus child, whose etheric body it was. There was that which had been withheld from humanity at the very beginning, and this prevented the Nazarene boy Jesus from taking an interest in the culture that humanity had developed. He possessed something far more primordial, reminiscent of the time when humanity had not yet fallen into the sin of individual arbitrariness. The writer of the Gospel of Luke expresses this by tracing the genealogy all the way back to Adam. Thus, something appears in the Nazarene boy Jesus that had sunk into Adam, something that was beyond the reach of the Luciferic influence. What humanity was before this Luciferic influence—that was present in this Nazarene boy Jesus.

[ 36 ] These two young Jesus figures lived side by side. When they were both twelve years old, the following happened. Then the Zarathustra within the Bethlehemite Jesus-child decided to cross over, bringing his individuality with him, into the Nazarene Jesus-child. This is alluded to in the Bible in the event known as the loss of the twelve-year-old Jesus, where his parents are astonished to find him again. He was completely different from what he had been before—the Nazarene Jesus-child. Now, all of a sudden, he took an interest in external culture, because Zarathustra’s individuality was within him. This happened at the very moment described in the Bible as the “loss of the twelve-year-old Jesus.” Something else had happened as well. At the birth of the Nazarene boy Jesus, what we might call the later incarnation of the Buddha descended into his astral body. The Buddha, in his etheric body at the time of his reincarnation, was now connected from birth with this Nazarene boy Jesus, so that we have the Buddha in the astral body within the aura of the Nazarene boy Jesus. This is profoundly alluded to in the Gospel of Luke. An Indian legend tells of a remarkable sage who lived at the time when the prince Gautama Buddha—who was to become the Buddha—was born. This sage was named Asita. Through his clairvoyant abilities, he had learned that the Bodhisattva had now been born. He looked upon the boy in the royal palace and was filled with enthusiasm. He began to weep. “Why are you weeping?” the king asked him. “O King, no misfortune is imminent—on the contrary: the one who has been born here is the Bodhisattva and will become the Buddha. I weep because, as an old man, I will no longer be able to live to see this Buddha.” —Then Asita dies. The Bodhisattva becomes the Buddha. The Buddha descends and unites with the aura of the Nazarene boy Jesus to contribute his small part to the great event in Palestine. At the same time, through a karmic connection, the old Asita is reborn. He becomes the old Simeon. And now he sees the Buddha, who had become one from a Bodhisattva. What he had been unable to see back then in India, six hundred years before our era—the becoming of the Buddha—he now saw it, as the Buddha hovered in the aura of the Nazarene boy Jesus, whom he held in his arms; and now he spoke these beautiful words: “Now, Lord, you let your servant depart in peace, for I have seen my Master”—the Buddha in the aura of the child Jesus.

[ 37 ] Thus we see how the three currents converge: the current of Abraham flowing down through the blood; the Zarathustra current through the individuality of the Bethlehemite Jesus child; and the third current through the Buddha descending into his etheric body, or Nirmanakaya, and being seen by the shepherds. Thus we see these three currents converging. And how these currents continue to live on within Christianity—how the one who then lives in the Nazarene child Jesus, endowed with the individuality of Zarathustra, carries these currents forward—can only be described another time.

[ 38 ] It should also be noted that, after the Zarathustra individuality had passed into the personality—into the body—of the Nazarene boy Jesus, the Bethlehem boy Jesus gradually wasted away and soon died.

[ 39 ] The important thing is that you understand how this guidance of the Zarathustra individuality took place within the child Jesus. You know that human development proceeds in such a way that from birth to the age of seven the physical body develops; from the seventh to the fourteenth year, the etheric body develops—its specific unfolding—and then the astral body is born. A distinct “I,” an ego, such as had indeed emerged in human beings during the Lemurian epoch, was entirely absent in the Nazarene Jesus child. Had he continued to develop without Zarathustra having passed over into him, no “I” could have been born. He possessed what had been brought together as the three sacred members, as they were before the Fall: the physical body, the etheric body, and the astral body; and it was only then that he received the gift of the “I” through Zarathustra. All of this came together in a wondrous way. In the Gospels, we find a reflection of the facts recorded in the Akashic Records.

[ 40 ] I have been able to describe only in broad strokes certain aspects of the convergence of these great, powerful spiritual currents—those of the Buddha, Zarathustra, and the ancient Hebrew tradition—in the Near East, where, at the beginning of our era, Christianity gave new life to these three currents. These are a few points that we can continue to explore another time.