The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Fourth Lecture

[ 1 ] Based on what we were able to explain yesterday, there is a great and significant difference between what can be called the knowledge of the spiritual world throughout the ages and that kind of knowledge of the divine-spiritual world that could be sought out of the special nature and organization of the Hebrew people in particular. We have pointed out that this Hebrew people, already in their forefather Abraham or Abram, received a very special organization, which consisted in the fact that a physical instrument, a physical organ, was incorporated into the human organism so that, through the means of sensory perception, as far as possible, they might rise to a certain—not merely a sense, but a knowledge—of the divine-spiritual. Knowledge of the divine-spiritual has existed and exists everywhere and always. But this, so to speak, eternal knowledge of the divine-spiritual is attained through the path of mystery initiation, through the path of initiation in general. We must distinguish between this—which can be attained through a particular human development, so to speak, by artificial means within the course of human evolution—and that knowledge of the spiritual world which is the norm for a given period, emerging, so to speak, as a special mission in human development. Thus, for the ancient Atlantean era, we could call astral-clairvoyant perception of the Divine-Spiritual the norm. For the times, however, in which the Hebrew people flourished, the normal—that is, the external, exoteric—knowledge of the spiritual world is that which comes about with the aid of a special physical organ through the power of cognition bound to such a physical organ. And we have already pointed out that the people of Abraham arrived at this knowledge by feeling, as it were, that the divine existence had fused with their own inner being. It was thus inner knowledge—the grasping of the divine in one’s very innermost being—that had become possible through this organ.

[ 2 ] But this grasping of the divine-spiritual within through this insight did not immediately become possible to the extent that the individual human being could have said: I immerse myself in my own inner being; I seek to grasp this inner being as deeply as I possibly can, and then I find the drop of divine-spiritual existence that can give me insight into the nature of what the outer world, too, experiences and is interwoven with in terms of the divine-spiritual. —It was not like that at first. This came about only through the appearance, through the revelation of Christ within the course of human development. For the ancient Hebrew people, the possibility of experiencing the divine in the national spirit existed only when the individual felt himself to be a member of the entire people, not as a single individual. When he felt, through his blood, that he belonged to a flowing lineage of generations, then he felt the consciousness of God—or Yahweh—alive in the national consciousness, in his blood. Therefore, if one wishes to describe Yahweh accurately in the Spiritual Science sense, one cannot do so by saying, “He is the God of Abraham.” That would only describe him inaccurately. Rather, one must say: He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; he is the being who flows from generation to generation, who reveals himself in the national consciousness within individual human beings and through individual human beings.

[ 3 ] The difference—and the great advance—between the understanding of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and that of Christianity is that Christian understanding recognizes within the individual human being the very same thing that ancient Hebrew understanding could attain only through immersion in the spirit of the people, in the spirit that flowed through the blood of generations. Thus Abraham could say: Insofar as I am promised to be the founder of a people that will spread throughout the generations descended from me, the God whom we acknowledge as the highest will live in the blood that flows through them; He reveals Himself to us in the consciousness of our people. — That became the norm.

[ 4 ] Now, running through all ages is a higher understanding of the divine-spiritual: the knowledge of the mysteries. This is not dependent on those other, specific forms. During the time of the ancient Atlantean development, one could look into the divine-spiritual foundation of existence through a certain kind of astral-etheric clairvoyance; one could develop one’s inner self and attain a knowledge of the mysteries or oracles. And even in the era when Hebrew knowledge was the norm, one could ascend in certain places by recognizing the Divine not within the body, as the Abrahamites did, but outside the body; one could ascend to the Divine-Spiritual from the perspective of the Eternal, by lifting one’s own Eternal self to behold the Divine-Spiritual.

[ 5 ] You can now easily form a mental image of what was essential for Abraham. He came to know the divine-spiritual in his very special way—through a physical organ, through physical perception. In this way, he came to know the ruling God of the world. If he wanted to place himself actively within the overall path of evolution, then it was infinitely important for him to recognize that the God who reveals Himself in the collective consciousness is the same One who, throughout the ages, has been acknowledged in the mysteries as the creative and active Deity. Thus, Abraham had to be able to identify his God with the God of the Mysteries. This was possible only under a very specific condition. Under a very specific condition, he had to be given the certainty that the same forces speak in the collective consciousness as those that speak in a higher way in the Mysteries. If we are to understand this certainty, we must bear in mind a fact of human development.

[ 6 ] In my book Outline of Esoteric Science, you can read that there were initiates in ancient Atlantis who were called oracle priests there; the name is not important. I have also pointed out that one of these great initiates was the leader of all Atlantean oracles—the Sun-initiate—in contrast to the subordinate oracle sites of Atlantis, which housed Mercury-, Mars-, and Jupiter-initiates, and so on. I have also pointed out that this great Sun-Initiate, the leader of the Sun Oracle, was also the great leader of the significant cultural colony that moved from west to east, from Atlantis to the heart of Asia, in order to radiate from there and inaugurate the post-Atlantean culture. This great initiate—who was already an initiate at that time—withdrew to mysterious sites in the interior of Asia. He first gave those great sages, whom we call the holy Rishis, the opportunity to be great teachers of their peoples. And it was he, this great, mysterious initiate, who also bestowed initiation upon Zarathustra, or Zoroaster.

[ 7 ] The initiation given to Zarathustra, however, differed from that given to the Indian rishis; for they had different tasks. The rishis were given an initiation such that, as it were, of their own accord—as they continued to develop their inner selves—they could articulate the great mysteries of existence. Through this, they became the great leaders and teachers of the pre-Vedic, ancient Indian culture. There was also something else for them that, although produced by artificial means, was in this respect quite similar to the ancient Atlantean clairvoyance, which was distributed individually among the seven Rishis. Each of the seven Rishis had his own specific domain. Just as the various oracle sites had their own particular domains, so each of the seven Rishis had his own special task. And a council spoke when each of the seven Rishis shared what he knew of the world’s primordial wisdom. They had received this from the great Sun-initiate, who had transplanted the ancient Atlantean wisdom from the West to the East and had passed it on in a special way to those who were to become the bearers of post-Atlantean culture. He imparted it to Zarathustra in a different way, so that Zarathustra could speak as I have also indicated.

[ 8 ] The Rishis said: To reach the highest Divine-Spiritual, one must regard everything in the external world—everything that presents itself to the external senses—as maya, or illusion; one must turn away from it and focus one’s gaze entirely inward: then a world different from the one before you will open up within you. — Thus, by turning away from the illusory world of maya and developing one’s inner self to ascend into the divine-spiritual spheres—that was the teaching of the ancient Indian Rishis. Zoroaster took a different approach. He did not turn away from what manifests externally. He did not say: The external world is maya or illusion, from which we must turn away. Rather, he said: This maya or illusion is the revelation, the true garment of divine-spiritual existence. We must not turn away from it; on the contrary, we must explore it. We must see, within the body of sunlight, the outer fabric within which Ahura Mazda weaves and lives!

[ 9 ] In a certain sense, therefore, Zarathustra’s viewpoint was the opposite of that of the ancient Rishis. Post-Indian culture has become significant precisely because it was intended to impress upon the outside world what human beings can attain through their spiritual efforts. And we have also seen how Zarathustra had transmitted the best he had to offer to Moses and Hermes in the manner described. In order for the wisdom of Moses to bear fruit in the proper way and to sprout as a seed, it had to be rooted in the folk tradition that traced its lineage back to its forefather, Abraham. For Abraham had first developed within himself the capacity to acquire a consciousness of Yahweh. But he had to know that the God who could reveal Himself within him to the physical powers of cognition speaks with the same voice as the eternal, all-pervading God of the Mysteries—only that He revealed Himself in a limited way, namely, in the way Abraham could perceive Him.

[ 10 ] It is not readily possible for such a significant being as the great Atlantean Solar Initiate to speak immediately in a language that can be understood by those who live at any given time and have a special mission. An individuality as exalted as that of the great Solar Initiate—who, in his individuality, leads an eternal existence, of which it has rightly been said—to indicate the eternal nature of this individuality—that one should not mention his name or age, nor his father or mother— such a great guide of human existence can reveal himself only by assuming a form that makes him akin to those to whom he can reveal himself. Thus, in order to impart the appropriate enlightenment to Abraham, the Teacher of the Rishis, the Teacher of Zarathustra, assumed a form in which he wore the etheric body that had been preserved by Abraham’s forefather—the very same etheric body that had already been present in Abraham’s forefather, Shem, the son of Noah. This etheric body of Shem had been preserved, just as the etheric body of Zoroaster had been preserved for Moses, and the great initiate of the Sun Mystery made use of it in order to reveal himself to Abraham in a way he could understand. This encounter between Abraham and the great initiate of the Sun Mystery is the very encounter described to us in the Old Testament as Abraham’s meeting with the king, with the priest of the Most High God, with Melchizedek or Malek-Zadik, as he has come to be called (Genesis 14:18–20). This is an encounter of the greatest, most universal significance—this encounter between Abraham and the great initiate of the Mystery of the Sun, who—merely so as not to startle him, so to speak—revealed himself in the etheric body of Shem, the progenitor of the Semitic tribe. And the Bible pointedly alludes to something that, unfortunately, is all too little understood—namely, the source, so to speak, of what Melchizedek is able to give to Abraham. What can Melchizedek give to Abraham? He can give him the mystery of solar existence—which, of course, Abraham can understand only in his own way—the very same mystery that lies behind the revelation of Zarathustra, to which Zarathustra first pointed prophetically.

[ 11 ] If we have a mental image of the fact that Zarathustra pointed out to his chosen disciples what lives spiritually behind the body of sunlight as Ahura Mazdao, saying: “Look, behind this lies something that is not yet united with the Earth, but which will one day pour into Earth’s evolution and descend upon the Earth”—if we acknowledge that Zarathustra could only prophetically foreshadow the Sun Spirit, the Christ, of whom he said: ‘He will come in a human body’—then we must say that for the person who was to prepare and later bring about the incarnation of Christ on Earth, even greater depths of this solar mystery had to be revealed. This came about because Zarathustra’s teacher himself exerted an influence on Abraham during that encounter, bringing his influence, so to speak, from the same source from which the Christ influence later comes. This is symbolically hinted at again in the Bible when it is said: As Abraham goes to meet Melchizedek, this King of Salem, this priest of the highest of the gods, brings him bread and grape juice. “Bread and grape juice” are distributed once more later on: When the mystery of Christ is to be expressed to his followers at the institution of the Lord’s Supper, it is done through bread and grape juice! By emphasizing the equivalence of the sacrifice in such a meaningful way, it is pointed out that it is the same source from which Melchizedek draws, and from which Christ draws.

[ 12 ] So an influence was to take place—one that would later descend to Earth—indirectly through Melchizedek. And this influence was to be exerted upon Abraham, the great forerunner of the event to come. And the result of this encounter between Abraham and Melchizedek was that Abraham now sensed: whatever drives him, whatever he addresses by the name Yahweh or Jehovah as the highest being he can conceive—that comes from the same source from which the consciousness of the initiate, regarding all supreme earthly knowledge, also comes—from the highest God who interweaves and permeates all worlds. That was the consciousness that Abraham could now carry forward. - Another awareness dawned upon Abraham: the awareness that there is indeed something in the blood of the generations, flowing down through the people, that can truly be compared only to what can be beheld in the Mysteries when the clairvoyant gaze turns outward toward the mysteries of existence and understands the language of the cosmos.

[ 13 ] I have already pointed out how, in the mysteries, the secrets of the cosmos are expressed by speaking a language of the stars and using the secrets of the cosmos as a means of expression for what one wishes to convey. There were times when the Mystery teachers clothed what they wished to express in words and images drawn from the constellations of the stars. One saw, as it were, in the paths of the stars and in their positions relative to one another the images through which one sought to express what a human being experiences spiritually when he or she rises up to the Divine-Spiritual.

[ 14 ] What, then, did the initiates of the Mystery Wisdom read in this celestial script? They read in it the mysteries of the Divinity that weaves through and lives within the world. The orders of the stars were the visible expression of the Divinity. People turned their gaze to the universe and said: “There the Divinity reveals itself!” And the way it reveals itself is described to us by the orders and harmonies of the stars. — Thus, for such a contemplation of the world, the World God expressed Himself in the order of the stars.

[ 15 ] If this God of the world were to manifest Himself in a particular way through the mission of the Hebrew people, He would have to do so according to the same order that is laid out in the cosmos through the paths of the stars. That is to say, through the blood of the generations—which, after all, contained the outward instrument of Yahweh’s revelations—a similar order had to be expressed as that expressed in the celestial orbits. In other words: In the descendants of Abraham there had to be something that, in the succession of generations and in kinship by blood, was a reflection of what the celestial script is in the cosmos. That is why Abraham received the promise: “Your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky!”—This is the correct interpretation of the phrase that is usually rendered as, “Your descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in the sky,” which merely alludes to the great number of descendants (Genesis 22:17). But it is not the multitude that is meant; rather, it means that such an order should prevail among the descendants as was perceived in the heavens—in the language of the gods—through the grouping of the stars. There, one looked up upon an order such as is represented in the order of the zodiac. And in the positions of the wandering stars—the planets—relative to the zodiac, those constellations were expressed in which one found the language to describe the deeds of the gods as they weave their way through the universe. This firm bond, then, which manifests itself in the zodiac and in the relationship of the planets to the twelve signs of the zodiac, had to find expression in the bloodline of Abraham’s descendants.

[ 16 ] Thus, in the twelve sons of Jacob—the twelve tribes of the Hebrew people—we find the images of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Just as the language of the gods is expressed in the twelve zodiac constellations above, so Yahweh expresses Himself in the blood of the Jewish people, flowing down through the generations, which was divided into the twelve tribes according to the twelve sons of Jacob. We designate what is arranged within this constellation of the zodiac by the names of the planets: Venus, Mercury, the Moon, the Sun, and so on. And we have seen how what unfolds in the course of time as individual phases in the life history of the Hebrew people can, in fact, be paralleled in a certain respect with the path of the planets through the zodiac: that we must draw a parallel between David, the royal singer, and Hermes or Mercury; that we may draw a parallel between the time of the Babylonian captivity—that is, the configuration that received a new impetus through the revelation of Yahweh some six centuries before our era—and the name of Venus as one of the names of our planetary system. This was to be hinted at to Abraham. So, for example, the way in which a figure like David fits into the tribal lineage parallels the way Mercury stands in relation to the zodiac. The tribe of Judah, for example, corresponds to the constellation of Leo, and David’s placement within the tribe of Judah would correspond in the history of the Hebrew people to what, in the cosmos, would be Mercury’s occultation of the constellation of Leo. Thus, one can discern in every detail—in the lineage, in the peculiar transmission of the royal or priestly office, in the struggles or victories of one tribe or another, in the entire history of the Hebrew people—what the occultation of the individual constellations out in outer space represents. This was encapsulated in the meaningful words: “Your descendants shall be ordered like the harmony of the stars in the heavens.”—We must simply refrain from seeing in the documents, which are based on occultism, the trivialities that people are so eager to find in them; rather, we must assume that these documents possess infinite depth.

[ 17 ] We can indeed see how there is order in this succession of generations, which is then described to us in the Gospel of Matthew. We see that this evangelist suggests to us how, in a very special way, the blood of that body was composed—a body that was first to receive the individuality of Zarathustra, so that this individuality of Zarathustra could bring about the revelation of the Christ on earth.

[ 18 ] So what had been achieved throughout the forty-two generations from “Abraham to Joseph”? What had been achieved was that, by the last in the line of generations, a blending of blood had come about, which had taken place in accordance with the laws of the starry world and the sacred mysteries. And in this blending of blood—which the individuality of Zarathustra needed in order to carry out the great work—there was an inner order, a harmony that corresponded to one of the most beautiful and significant orders of the starry system. Thus, the blending of blood that Zarathustra found was a reflection of the entire cosmos. This blood, which had been formed over generations, was blended in the same way that the orders of the cosmos are arranged. All of this underlies that significant document which we now have before us—if I may say so—in a diluted form in the Gospel according to Matthew. This profound mystery of a people’s becoming as a reflection of a cosmic becoming underlies it.

[ 19 ] This is how those who initially knew something of the great mystery of Christ felt. They already sensed in the blood flowing through this Matthew-Jesus of Nazareth a reflection of the cosmos, a reflection of that Spirit that reigns throughout the cosmos. They expressed this mystery by saying: In the blood in which the “I”—which was then Jesus of Nazareth—was to live, the Spirit of the entire cosmos lived. If, then, this physical body were to be born, it would have to be an imprint of the Spirit of the entire cosmos, the Spirit that reigns in the world. - That was originally the formulation: that the power underlying that mixture of blood—which became that of Zarathustra or Jesus of Nazareth—was the Spirit of our entire cosmos, precisely that Spirit which, originally, after the separation of the Sun from our Earth, permeated with its creative force that which had emerged in the course of world evolution. From the Munich lectures already mentioned, we know: If we do not wish to translate the beginning of Genesis, the “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’aretz,” with the trivial words of our time—which no longer correspond to the ancient meaning—but rather seek out the true meaning, then we must translate it as follows: “In that which had come over from the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states of existence, the Elohim, in cosmic activity, conceived that which manifests itself outwardly, that which stirs within. And over that which stirs within, and through that which stirs, reigned the deep darkness; but spreading out into it, brooding over it, permeating it with warmth—much like a hen broods over an egg—was the creative Spirit of the Elohim, Ruach-Elohim.” What brooded there as Spirit is the very same, exactly the same, that which then brought about the orders that could be expressed in a certain way through the constellations of the stars. Thus the original initiates of the Christ Mystery felt that the mingling of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth was a reflection of what Ruach-Elohim was working throughout the existence of the world. And so they called the blood, which had been prepared in this way for the great event, “created by the Spirit of the world’s existence”—by the very same Spirit who is called Ruach in that significant description in Genesis, in the “Bereshit bara...”

[ 20 ] This sacred meaning, which is truly greater than any other, trivial meaning, underlies—as the higher meaning—what is called “the conception by the Holy Spirit of the Universe.” This underlies what is contained in the words: “And the mother of this child was filled with the power of this Spirit of the Universe” (Matt. 1:18). We need only sense the full magnitude of such a mystery, and we will then find that there is something infinitely higher in this way of presenting the matter than in all that is given exoterically in the Conceptio immaculata, in the “Immaculate Conception.” One need only contrast two things in the Bible with one another if one wishes to recognize the Bible’s true intent and move away from a trivial interpretation of the Immaculate Conception. The first is this: Why would the writer of the Gospel of Matthew list the entire line of generations from Abraham down to Joseph if he intended to say that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth had nothing to do with this entire genealogy? He goes to great lengths to show how the bloodline is traced ‘from Abraham down to Joseph,’ and then he is supposed to say that, in truth, the blood of Jesus of Nazareth has nothing to do with this bloodline? And the other fact is that Ruach-Elohim, who is called the Holy Spirit in the Bible, is feminine in the Hebrew language—a feminine noun—which surely must also be taken into account in some way. — We will return to this later; for now, I simply wanted to give you a sense of how vast the conceptual framework is that underlies this mystery at its very foundation.

[ 21 ] What took place at the beginning of our calendar—and what was known only to the sages who were truly initiated into the mysteries of the world’s existence—was first expressed in Aramaic in the document upon which the Gospel of Matthew is based. And it is possible to prove—not only through occultism but also through purely philological research—that this document, which forms the basis of the Gospel of Matthew, already existed in the year 71. You can find an account of the true genesis of the Gospels in my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact. But if one proceeds with true precision, one can even demonstrate philologically that everything said about a later conception of the Gospel of Matthew is incorrect; for we can prove that as early as the year 71—that is, a relatively short time after the events in Palestine—an Aramaic original manuscript of the Gospel of Matthew already existed. But since I am not here to present philological facts, but only those of Spiritual Science, I will point out just one thing from Talmudic literature, which is fully corroborated by Jewish scholars.

[ 22 ] In Talmudic literature, we find a reference stating that Rabbi Gamaliel II was involved in an inheritance dispute with his sister, which arose because his father had been killed in a conflict with the Romans in the year 70. And we are told that Rabbi Gamaliel II appeared before a judge at that time who, according to all accounts in Talmudic literature, was a “half-Christian,” a so-called “Jewish Christian.” Such individuals already held judicial offices established by the Romans for the Jews. Something curious then took place: Rabbi Gamaliel II was in a dispute with his sister over the inheritance—his father’s estate. And before his judge, who already knew something about Christianity, he argued that according to the law in force among the Jews, only the son, but not the daughter, could inherit, and that the inheritance therefore belonged to him alone. The judge then rebuked him, pointing out that the Torah had been set aside in the districts over which he presided, and since he was seeking justice and a verdict from him, he would not judge merely according to Jewish law, but according to the law that had taken the place of the Torah. All this had taken place, as already mentioned, in the year 71, since Gamaliel’s father had perished in the persecution of the Jews in the year 70. Now Rabbi Gamaliel saw no other way out but to bribe the judge. So the next day, the bribed judge quoted a passage—one that was taken from the Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew. And what did the judge say? That Christ “did not come to break the Law of Moses, but to fulfill it!” (Matt. 5:17). In this way, he believed he could clear his conscience when he bent the law, arguing that he was judging in accordance with Christ’s will by awarding the inheritance to Gamaliel.

[ 23 ] From this we know that in the year 71 there existed a Christian document from which words were borrowed that are now contained in the Gospel of Matthew. We thus have this external indication—namely, that passage is cited in Aramaic—that this document, this Aramaic original of the Gospel of Matthew, existed at that time, at least in part. We will yet have to discuss what occult research has to say about this. This was mentioned here merely to show that even when one draws upon external scholarship, one must not do what is so often done—namely, compiling everything that scholars happen to be able to read, while, for example, disregarding Talmudic literature, which is extraordinarily significant for what can be understood about these matters even from an exoteric perspective.

[ 24 ] Thus we see that, even from an external standpoint, we are on fairly solid ground if we date the Gospel of Matthew to a relatively early period. That alone, I would say, provides a certain external proof that the people involved in the composition of the Gospel of Matthew were not very far removed in time from the events in Palestine, so that even from an exoteric standpoint it is established that one could not simply lie to people’s faces at that time and say, “the Christ Jesus of whom we speak did not live at the beginning of our era.” For it was not even half a century later, so that one still had to speak to eyewitnesses and could not tell them things that had not actually happened. These are matters that are exoterically important, and we mention them only as evidence for the exoteric aspect of the matter.

[ 25 ] We have thus seen how, drawing upon the mysteries of the cosmos, arrangements were made in the course of human evolution to create—from the, as it were, filtered blood of the Hebrew people, who had absorbed the order of the universe itself—a body in which the great initiate Zarathustra would once again incarnate. For the Gospel of Matthew speaks of the Zarathustra individuality; and it is no other individuality than the Zarathustra individuality of which this Gospel speaks. Now, we must not imagine that all of this—which we are, as it were, drawing to light from the deepest mysteries of world evolution—took place so openly before everyone’s eyes. Even for his contemporaries, it was shrouded in a deep mystery and understandable only to the very few initiates. It is therefore understandable that such profound silence reigns over everything that took place at that time as the greatest event in human evolution. And when historians today refer to their documents and say that these documents are silent about this event, this should not surprise us, but rather seem quite natural.

[ 26 ] Now that we have described how this greatest event in human evolution was prepared from the perspective of Zarathustra, we must now briefly consider other preparatory currents leading up to this great event. Much, much happened in human evolution both immediately before and immediately after these events surrounding Christ had taken place. In essence, this event had already been prepared long beforehand. Just as it was prepared from the outer side—through Zarathustra sending forth Moses and Hermes, and through Melchizedek, through the Sun Mystery itself, preparing the outer shell of Jesus of Nazareth—so too was another current prepared, as it were a side current of this great current; yet even though it is only a side current, it nonetheless has something to do with the great main current that originates with Zarathustra. This side current is slowly taking shape in those places that are also indicated to us by external history through the fact that our attention is drawn to certain sects that strove for a particular development of the soul, and which are described to us by Philo as the “Therapists.” The Therapists were members of a mysterious sect who sought to purify their souls through inner processes in order to expel what had been defiled by external interactions and external knowledge, thereby elevating themselves into pure spiritual spheres. A branch of this sect of the Therapists, in which that side current was further developed, were the “Essene” or “Esseni” living in Asia. All these people—you can find a brief description of them in my Christianity as a Mystical Fact—who were united in these sects shared a certain common spiritual guidance. A certain spiritual guidance existed among both the Therapeuts and the Essenes. And if we wish to gain an exoteric understanding of this spiritual guidance, we must recall what we discussed last year in the lectures on the Gospel of Luke. We referred there to the mystery of Gautama Buddha, as it is also treated exoterically in the Eastern scriptures, and we said that anyone who wishes to become a Buddha in the course of their development must first become a Bodhisattva. We explained how the one known in history as the “Buddha” was also first a Bodhisattva and then became a Buddha. Until the twenty-ninth year of his physical life as the son of King Suddhodana, he was still a Bodhisattva, and it was only in his twenty-ninth year that, through his inner soul development, he became a Buddha. There are now a whole series of Bodhisattvas in the evolution of humanity; and that Bodhisattva who became a Buddha six centuries before our era is one of the Bodhisattvas who guide the evolution of humanity. Such an individual, who ascends from the rank of a Bodhisattva to that of a Buddha, does not later reincarnate in a physical body on Earth. We have seen how the Buddha manifested himself at the birth of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke by uniting with this Jesus—whom we have called the Jesus of the Nathanic line—through his etheric body. And we have seen that this is a different Jesus than the one we first speak of in the Gospel of Matthew.

[ 27 ] In the attainment of Buddhahood by Suddhodana’s son, we see the culmination of an ancient process of development. In fact, this development, which reaches its conclusion with the attainment of Buddhahood by that Bodhisattva, belongs to the same current as that of the sacred Rishis of India; but this current reached a certain conclusion with the attainment of Buddhahood by that Bodhisattva. — When a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha, his successor takes his place. This is also recounted in the ancient Indian legend, which states that the Bodhisattva who descended to attain Buddhahood as the son of King Suddhodana passed on the Bodhisattva’s crown to his successor in the spiritual realms before his final descent. Thus, ever since those times, there has been a successor to that Bodhisattva who became the Buddha. And this new Bodhisattva, who now continued to work as a Bodhisattva, had a special task for the development of humanity. He was specifically entrusted with the task of spiritually guiding the movement that manifested itself in the Therapeutae and the Essenes, so that in that Bodhisattva—who became the Buddha’s successor—we recognize the spiritual leader of the Therapeutae and Essene communities. That is where his influence was at work. This Bodhisattva sent, so to speak, a special individual into the Essene communities to lead the Essenes under the reign of King Alexander Jannai—approximately 125 to 77 B.C. This special individual led the Essene communities about a century before the appearance of Jesus Christ on Earth. This figure is well known in occultism, but also in the exoteric Talmudic literature.

[ 28 ] Thus, one century before our era—one century before the appearance of Christ on Earth—there was an individual who had nothing to do with the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke and nothing to do with the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, a figure who served as a guide and leader in the Essene communities. This figure is well known in occultism as a sort of Essene precursor to Christianity; he is also known in Talmudic literature under the name Jesus, son of Pandira, Jeshu ben Pandira. This Jesus, son of Pandira—about whom malicious Jewish literature has spun all sorts of fables, which have since been revived in more recent times—this figure, who was a noble and great personality, must not be confused, as some Talmudists do, with the Jesus of Nazareth of whom we are speaking. We also recognize this Essene precursor to Christianity in Jesus, the son of Pandira. And we know that this Jeshu ben Pandira was accused of blasphemy and heresy by those who, at that time, viewed the Essene teachings as blasphemous; he was first stoned and, after being stoned, hanged from a tree to add shame to his punishment. This is an obscure fact, but one that also appears in Talmudic literature.

[ 29 ] In this Jeshu ben Pandira, we see a figure who stands under the protection of the Bodhisattva, who is the successor to that Bodhisattva who, as the son of King Suddhodana, later became the Buddha. This is quite clear. We can see in that movement a kind of preparation, a side current to the main current of Christianity—one that is dependent on the Buddha’s successor, the present Bodhisattva, who will later become the Maitreya Buddha and who sent his emissaries into the Essene communities; this found its expression at that time in the missionary who brought about in the Essene communities what we will learn about in the next lecture.

[ 30 ] Thus, we must look for the name “Jesus” in the individual described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; but we must also seek the name of Jesus a century before the beginning of our era in the Essene community, in that noble figure against whom everything the malicious Talmudic literature has to say is slander—a figure who was accused of blasphemy and heresy, who was first stoned and then hung from a tree.