The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Eighth Lecture

[ 1 ] When one approaches the study of the Gospels through the lens of Spiritual Science, one comes to realize that truly profound experiences resonate from these Gospels. And one might say that people will perhaps only begin to form a mental image of what has flowed into these Gospels from the spiritual experiences of their authors and scribes once Spiritual Science has become more widely known than it is today. In particular, all sorts of things will then be recognized in the Gospels that are not directly contained within these texts, but which can only be noticed when one places these four Gospels side by side and examines them in relation to one another. All sorts of things can be noticed there.

[ 2 ] First of all, I would like to point out that in the Gospel of Matthew, the actual presentation of the Christ impulse is preceded by a nativity story that begins with a description of the ancient Hebrew people—or, more precisely, of their forefather— so that the portrayal of the Christ impulse in the Gospel of Matthew goes back only as far as the beginning of the ancient Hebrew people. We thus learn, as it were, from this Gospel to recognize the bearer of the Christ essence as having grown out of the ancient Hebrew people. When we then turn to a consideration of the Gospel of Mark, the Christ impulse itself confronts us directly. Everything concerning the childhood narrative is initially set aside. After we have been made aware that John the Baptist is the great forerunner of the Christ impulse, the Gospel of Mark begins immediately with the account of John’s baptism in the Jordan. Then again, through the Gospel of Luke, we are introduced to a different kind of childhood narrative—one that traces the lineage of the man Jesus of Nazareth much further back, extending, so to speak, to the very beginning of humanity on Earth. By tracing the lineage of Jesus of Nazareth back to Adam and then stating, “he was God’s,” this nativity narrative clearly shows us that the human aspect of Jesus of Nazareth is to be traced back to the time when humanity first emerged, in its origin, from divine-spiritual beings. Thus, the Gospel of Luke takes us back to that point in time when humanity is no longer encountered as an earthly being incarnated in the flesh, but rather as a spiritual being emerging, as it were, from the bosom of divine spirituality. Then, in the Gospel of John, we are confronted with the great fact that, once again—without any account of his childhood, without any discussion of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth—we are immediately led—and now in a particularly profound sense—to the essence of Christ.

[ 3 ] In the course of the development of Spiritual Science we have undergone in recent years, we ourselves have now taken a certain approach to the study of the Gospels, beginning with the Gospel that could offer us the highest insights into the abstract spirituality of Christ: the Gospel of John. We then examined the Gospel of Luke to show how this highest spirituality, as it manifests in a human being, is portrayed when that human being is traced back to the moment when he himself emerged as an earthly human being from the Divine. And we then examined the Gospel of Matthew to understand the Christ impulse as emerging from the ancient Hebrew people. We have, so to speak, saved the Gospel of Mark for last. We will only truly understand why we did this if we connect some of what we have been able to touch upon from general Spiritual Science in recent times with what has been known to us from earlier times and with certain new insights. That is why, in the last lecture here, attention was drawn to various aspects of human life and the composition of the human being’s constituent elements, and today, by way of introduction, a similar consideration will be undertaken once more, which can again point us to specific aspects of human development itself. For it will become increasingly necessary for humanity that the conditions of human development be recognized—indeed, not only recognized, but also upheld.

[ 4 ] As we move further into the future, human beings will increasingly seek to become more independent and more individual. Faith in external authorities will be increasingly replaced by the authority of one’s own soul. This is a necessary course of development. However, for this course to become a source of salvation and blessing, human beings must recognize their own essence. One cannot say, however, that we as humanity as a whole are already particularly advanced today in terms of our appreciation and understanding of human nature. For what is happening today, among many other things, in our contemporary history? There is certainly no shortage in our time of all manner of programs for humanity, all manner of ideals for humanity, and what is commonly referred to as such. One could almost say: Not just every other person, but every person today wants to present themselves as a kind of little messiah with a special ideal, wanting to create from their own mind and heart an ideal image of what is to serve as salvation and blessing for humanity. - And there is certainly no shortage today—especially today—of associations and societies founded to introduce into our culture this or that which people believe to be the most essential. We have programs and idealistic demands in abundance today, and there is no lack of faith in such programs either. For the power of conviction among those who formulate such programs in our time has grown to such an extent that it will soon be necessary to convene a kind of council that would declare the infallibility of every human being. In this, we convey something of what is, in the deepest sense, characteristic of our time.

[ 5 ] Spiritual Science does not prevent us from thinking about our future. But we are reminded that there are fundamental conditions and laws that cannot be disregarded with impunity if we wish to achieve anything with regard to these impulses. For what does modern man believe? He consults within himself; this or that ideal arises in his soul, and he considers himself capable of bringing this ideal into reality on the broadest possible scale. Yet they do not consider that the time to bring this ideal into reality may not yet have come, that the image they form of this ideal may be nothing more than a caricature, and that perhaps only a more or less distant future could allow such an ideal to mature. In short, it is so difficult for people today to understand that every event in the course of development must be prepared in advance, and that every event must occur at a specific point in time determined by the general macrocosmic conditions of the world. It is extraordinarily difficult for people today to grasp such a concept. Yet this is a universal law and applies to every single human being, just as it applies to the entire human race. We can recognize this law in the individual human being when we observe life from a spiritual-scientific perspective. There we can, so to speak, focus on the smallest, most immediate thing—on something that is to spring from our own soul.

[ 6 ] I do not wish to present you with general ideas, but rather to stick to observation. Therefore, I will first assume that someone finds himself in a situation where he grasps an idea with the utmost intensity in his soul, so that he is inflamed by this idea, that this idea takes on a very specific form in his soul, and that he is imbued with the will to realize this idea in some way. So let us assume that this idea arises in his mind and he is filled with the emotional impulse of his heart. Then the person of today will not be able to wait; he will naturally set out right away to realize this idea.

[ 7 ] Let us assume that this idea is, at first, a small one, concerning only some information about scientific or artistic facts. Will the occultist, who knows the laws, also immediately counter such a completely foreign idea to the world? — Let us assume that it is a small idea. The occultist knows that the first way this idea manifests is, initially, as a life of this idea within the human astral body. This can already be observed externally by the presence of enthusiasm in our soul. This enthusiasm is initially a force within our astral body. It will generally lead to misfortune if a person does not allow the idea to rest within them at this stage, but instead immediately presents it to their fellow human beings or to the world; for this idea must first undergo a very specific process. It must, in fact, take hold of the astral body ever more deeply and then imprint itself on the etheric body like a seal. If this idea is a small one, this process may take, for example, seven days. But this time is necessary. And when a person rushes headlong with their idea, they always tend to overlook something important: namely, that after seven days a very specific experience of a subtle nature occurs. If one pays attention to such things, one can have this experience; if one rushes headlong with one’s idea and says, “Let’s bring it into the world!”—the result is that the soul is not at all inclined to listen to what takes place on the seventh day. On the seventh day, with a small idea, it always happens that one doesn’t really know what to do with it, and it slips away from one’s soul again. One is unsettled, perhaps even tormented inwardly, filled with all sorts of doubts; yet at the same time, one has grown fond of the idea, even though it has become something tormenting. The enthusiasm has transformed into an intimate feeling of love. Thus, this idea is now within the etheric body.

[ 8 ] If it is to continue to flourish, it must take hold of the external astral substance that always surrounds us. Thus, it must first travel from our astral body into our etheric body and from there into the external astral realm. This journey takes the idea another seven days. And if you are not the kind of person who says, “When the idea starts to torment us, we no longer want it—so off with it!”—but rather if you pay attention to the course of life—then after this time you can recognize that something is happening that can be expressed something like this: You find external support for your idea, so that you say to yourself: It’s good that you waited fourteen days, because now you’re no longer alone with your idea. It’s as if you’re being inspired by the macrocosm, so that something from the outer world enters into your idea. - Only then do you feel that, as a human being, you are in harmony with the entire spiritual world, which offers you something in return when you offer something to it. This is a certain uplifting feeling that arises after a period of about two times seven days.

[ 9 ] But then this idea must make its way back again, first from the outer astral realm back into the etheric body. Then we already sense it quite concretely, and the temptation is quite great to hand it over to the world. Here we must hold back with all our strength; for there is now the danger that the idea, because it still rests in the etheric body, would enter the world in a cold manner and be communicated to the world in a cold, icy way. But if we wait another seven days, what is icy rises up and becomes imbued once more with the warmth of our own astral body, taking on a personal character; so that what we have first given birth to and had baptized by the gods, we may now present to the world as our own. Every impulse we feel in our soul must actually pass through these last three stages until it matures within us. This applies even to a small idea.

[ 10 ] For an idea that may be more meaningful, longer periods of time will be necessary—but always ones that follow a seven-to-seven rhythm. Thus, weeks—not months, but then years again—form such a rhythm, so that we can have a sequence of seven-to-seven weeks and then seven-to-seven years.

[ 11 ] From this we see, then, that it is not merely a matter of modern people believing they have some kind of impulse within their souls, but rather that one must possess the ability to patiently bear this impulse, to have it baptized by the World Spirit, and then to live it out in its mature state. One could add other such laws that exist; for what is called the development of the soul is full of such regularities. When, for example, we feel particularly inspired on a certain day—and these days vary greatly in human life—you feel as if you are favored by the World Spirit today, and ideas arise within you! —then it is good not to rush headlong into it, but to know that after nineteen days a similar process of fertilization takes place in the soul. In short, the development of the human soul is full of such laws. Now, human beings—one might say, thank God—have a strong instinctive sense not to overdo these things, nor to ignore them entirely. They do take them into account. In particular, people who depend on cultivating something higher within themselves and allowing it to mature take this into account, even without actually knowing the laws. One could easily demonstrate how artistic natures exhibit a certain rhythm, a certain periodicity in their creative work—a certain rhythm based on days, weeks, years, and so on. This can be demonstrated quite easily, especially in the case of artists of the very highest order—take Goethe, for example: that something actually arises in his soul and only truly matures after four times seven years, and then emerges in a different form than the one we first saw arise in Goethe’s soul.

[ 12 ] One might easily say, in keeping with the prevailing attitudes of our time: “Yes, my dear spiritual researcher, such laws may well exist; but why should people concern themselves much with them?” He will observe them instinctively anyway. — Yes, that statement was true in the past. But because people are becoming more and more independent, listening more and more to their own individuality, they must also learn to develop an inner calendar within themselves more and more. Just as people have an external calendar, which is of great importance for physical activities, so too will people in the future—as their souls grow in intensity—come to feel, for example, inner weeks, a sense of life ebbing and flowing, and inner Sundays. For humanity is advancing toward innerization. Much of what humanity has previously experienced in the numerical division of external life, people will later experience internally; they will experience a resurrection of the macrocosmic within the soul as we move further into the future. It will be a natural duty for them not to cause turmoil and upheaval in human development by continually transgressing the sacred laws of soul development. People will come to understand that it is merely a form of sophisticated, higher selfishness when they always want to immediately share whatever takes hold in their souls. And people will naturally come to feel the Spirit within their souls—not abstractly, as they do today, but they will sense how this Spirit works within their souls in a regular and lawful manner. And when something occurs to them—when they themselves wish to share what is in their souls—they will not rush upon humanity like a raging bull, but will listen to what the spirit-filled nature within the human being has to say.

[ 13 ] What will it mean for people when what emerges into the world from the laws of the inner spiritual realm—to which we are to listen and from which we are to draw inspiration—gains ever greater significance? - For the most part, people today still have no sense of such a thing. They do not believe that spirits within will take hold of human beings and act in accordance with spiritual laws. For a long time to come—even among those who mean well for human culture—it will be regarded as folly to speak of this inner, law-governed activity of the spirit. And for those who believe in the spirit based on Spiritual Science knowledge, the deep antipathy of the times that have been handed down to us will bring to pass what is said in the Gospel of Mark specifically for our times: “When they take you away and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, nor plan it in advance; but speak whatever is given to you at that very hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit.”

[ 14 ] We must seek to understand such a passage—which refers specifically to our own time—in such a way that its validity is derived from its place within the overall context, not only of the Gospel of Mark but also of the other Gospels. If you look through the Gospel of Mark, you will see that it contains elements that, for the most part, can also be found in the other Gospels. But there is one passage in the Gospel of Mark that is quite remarkable, one that does not appear in the other Gospels. This particular passage is especially remarkable because Gospel scholars have spoken all sorts of truly absurd nonsense specifically about it. It is the passage where Jesus Christ steps out to preach to the people, and where it is said, after he has chosen his apostles: “And they came home; but the crowd gathered there, so that they had no room to eat. And when his own heard this, they went out to seize him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’”

[ 15 ] This passage does not actually appear in the other Gospels. If we now consider that the course of human development toward the future will be such that the Pauline saying—“Not I, but Christ in me!”—will become ever truer, and that therefore only the human “I” that absorbs the Christ impulse within itself can bear fruit, then we may apply the passage cited above to our own time in the most eminent sense. This destiny, which Christ Jesus exemplified during the events in Palestine, will—like all Christ events—unfold for all of humanity over the course of time. In the near future of humanity, people will increasingly sense that wherever Christ is proclaimed in the spiritual-scientific sense from a place of inner understanding, the deepest antipathies will arise among all those who instinctively reject Spiritual Science. It will not be difficult, in essence, to see that what is described to us as an exemplary Christ event—particularly in the Gospel of Mark—will play out in the future. The outward way of life of many people, as well as much of what will assert itself as art, but above all, to the greatest extent, that which will present itself as science, will—with regard to those who proclaim the Spirit in the Christ sense—say of the very near future: “From it emerge such people that it seems as if they have lost their minds.”

[ 16 ] For it must be said again and again that the most important facts of spiritual life, as presented by Spiritual Science, will be regarded by the vast majority of humanity in the future as fantasies and follies. And we are to draw from the Gospel of Mark the strength we need to stand firm against the opposition that will arise against the truth that can be found in the spiritual realm.

[ 17 ] If one has a sense of the subtler stylistic differences between the Gospel of Mark and the other Gospels, one also notices that, from a perspective of Spiritual Science, certain things are presented differently in the Gospel of Mark than in the other Gospels. One notices that through the sentence structure and the omission of certain sentences found in the other Gospels, many things that could easily be taken in an abstract sense take on a particular nuance. If one has a sense of this, then one will also notice in particular that the Gospel of Mark presents a profound and significant teaching about the “I”—a teaching about the full significance of the human “I.” To understand this, one need only consider a single passage from this Gospel with all its distinctive features—features that arise from the omission of certain elements found in the other Gospels within this very passage. If one has a sense for such distinctive features, one will be able to grasp the profound significance inherent in this passage of the Gospel of Mark. Let us examine it:

[ 18 ] And Jesus set out, and his followers accompanied him to the towns in the vicinity of Caesarea Philippi. As they were walking along the road, he said to those around him, “What do people say about who the Self is? What do people recognize as the Self?” - Then those who were around Jesus answered: “People say that John the Baptist must dwell within ‘I’ for ‘I’ to be true. Others, however, say that ‘I’ must be imbued with Elijah, and that Elijah must dwell within ‘I’; still others say that one of the other prophets must be regarded in such a way that ‘I’ says: ‘It is not I, but this prophet within me who acts.’” — But he said to those around him, “What, then, do you say the ‘I’ is?” - Then Peter answered, “The ‘I,’ understood in such a way that we recognize it in its spirituality as ‘You’—that is the Christ!” — And then he answered those around him, “Be careful not to tell this to ordinary people! For they cannot yet understand this mystery.” — But to those around him who had been stirred by these words, he began to teach the following: That which in man outwardly and physically expresses the “I”—if this “I” is to come fully to life within man—must suffer much; and just as it was, it must accept that the oldest masters of humanity and those who know what is contained in the holiest wisdom say: In the form in which it currently exists, it is of no use; it must be killed in that form and, following a rhythm of three days dictated by worldly conditions, be reborn from a higher form. — And they were all dismayed when he spoke these words freely and openly.

[ 19 ] I must make a comment here. Until then, such a word was permitted to be spoken only within the Mysteries. It was a secret that had previously been spoken only within the temples of the Mysteries—the secret that a person had to undergo the “die and be reborn” process during initiation and had to awaken after three days. This explains the statement:

[ 20 ] Peter was dismayed; he took Christ aside and told him that such things should not be said freely and openly. Then Christ Jesus turned and said: “When you say such things, Peter, it is Satan who puts them into your mind; for as you speak this truth, it lies beyond our time, belongs to the past; there it had to be confined within the temples. In the future, in light of the primordial mystery of Golgotha, it will gradually be able to become the heritage of all humanity. Thus it is ordained in the divine guidance of world development. And whoever says otherwise does not speak from divine wisdom, but transforms divine wisdom into the temporal form it once had among human beings in the past.

[ 21 ] This is roughly how we must understand this passage, which strikes us particularly in all its concise grandeur in the Gospel of Mark. We must realize that the Christ impulse, precisely in the sense of the Gospel of Mark, consists in our receiving Christ into our “I” and in the words of Paul: “Not I, but Christ in me!” — and to realize this more and more; and not merely the abstract Christ, but the Christ who sent the Holy Spirit, the concrete Spirit who, as has been described today, works inspiringly within the human soul through His inner calendar in accordance with the laws of nature.

[ 22 ] In pre-Christian times, people came to this truth only by being initiated into the mysteries and spending three and a half days in a death-like state, after having endured the tragic sufferings of human beings as they exist on the physical plane when they are to evolve to spiritual heights; so that they had come to realize that this human being must be cast aside, must be killed, and that a higher human being must rise within him—that is, that they had undergone the “die and become.” But what previously could only be experienced in the mysteries became a historical event—I refer here to my book Christianity as a Mystical Fact—through the Mystery of Golgotha, and through this, all people were given the opportunity to be disciples of this great wisdom by feeling connected to the Mystery of Golgotha. What was formerly experienced only in the places of the Mysteries can now be experienced in relation to the site of Golgotha. Thus, understanding the Christ impulse is indeed the most significant understanding a human being can attain regarding his earthly existence—for what, according to the Christ impulse, is to awaken more and more within the human “I.”

[ 23 ] We can now, in a certain way, draw inspiration from the Gospels ourselves. Thus, for the time in which the Christ event itself took place, the Gospel of Matthew was a good source of inspiration. For our time, this applies in particular to the Gospel of Mark. We know, after all, that our age is one in which the conscious soul—which separates itself in isolation from its environment—is to be developed above all else. We know that we are now called not so much to focus on our descent from a particular people, but rather on that which is to live within us according to the Pauline saying: “Not I, but Christ in me!” — Thus, our fifth post-Atlantean epoch is the one that will be inspired in particular by the Gospel of Mark. In contrast, the sixth post-Atlantean cultural epoch will have the task of gradually filling the whole human being with the Christ-essence. While in the fifth cultural epoch the Christ-essence will be the object of study, deepening, and inner contemplation, in the sixth cultural epoch human beings will take up the Christ-essence into their entire being. To this end, they will draw upon the special treasure we have come to know as the inner essence of the Gospel of Luke, which has shown us the entire origin of Jesus of Nazareth—both the Jesus described in the Gospel of Matthew, who traces back to Zarathustra, and the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, who traces back to Buddha and Buddhism. For this is indeed how we have regarded the Gospel of Luke: it has made clear to us the entire long development of Jesus of Nazareth, so that we could in fact trace it back to the divine-spiritual origin of the human being. And as a divine-spiritual being, human beings will be able to feel this more and more and must, as such, allow themselves to be permeated by the Christ impulse. This may indeed shine before them as an ideal, but it only becomes concrete when they truly rise up through the Gospel of Luke to the point of comprehending the physical-sensory human being with its divine origin as a spiritual being.

[ 24 ] And for the seventh post-Atlantean cultural epoch, leading up to the next great catastrophe, the Gospel of John will be a book of inspiration, whereas today it can serve as a guide for human spiritual life. However, people will still need to grasp many things that they must learn to understand well as spiritual beings during the sixth period. But people will have to unlearn much of what they believe today—they will have to unlearn it thoroughly. That will not be difficult, however, for scientific facts will prove that certain things will have to be overcome.

[ 25 ] Even today, some people still view those who draw attention to the self-evident truth—that the current classification of nerves into motor and sensory is an absurdity—as “out of their minds.” There are no such things as “motor” nerves. There are only sensory nerves. Motor nerves are also sensory nerves; they merely serve to bring about the corresponding sensations of movement within the muscles themselves. It will not take long at all before people come to realize that the muscle is indeed not set in motion by nerves, but rather that it is set in motion by our astral body—specifically by that part of our astral body which, at first, is not directly perceived as it is. For it is a law that what is meant to have an effect is not directly perceived. What sets the muscle in motion, what causes any movement of the muscle, is connected to the astral body—specifically, in such a way that within the astral body itself, a kind of tonal development, a kind of sound development, takes place in relation to the movement of the muscle. Something like a musical quality permeates our astral body, and the expression of this tonal development is the muscle movement. It really is as if, in the well-known Chladni figures, we were to place light, movable dust on a metal plate and then stroke it with a violin bow: we would then obtain a figure. Our astral body is also permeated by a multitude of such figures—which are, however, sound figures—that together cause our astral body to assume a specific position. This is imprinted in the astral body. People can easily convince themselves of this by tensing their biceps—the upper arm muscle—properly and then bringing it close to their ear: if they practice this a bit—simply tensing the muscle correctly and placing their thumb against it—they can hear the tone. This is not meant to be proof, but merely a simple illustration of what is meant here. - Thus, we are permeated by music and express it through our muscle movements. And it is through our motor nerves—as they are incorrectly called—that we are aware of some of our muscle movements. The way things are categorized in physiology today still suggests otherwise, but only seemingly.

[ 26 ] This, however, is only one kind of such truth that will increasingly convince people that human beings are truly spiritual beings, truly woven into the harmonies of the cosmic spheres, right down to their muscles. And it is precisely Spiritual Science—which is called upon to prepare the sixth epoch with regard to the spiritual understanding of the world—that will deal with every detail concerning such truths about human beings as spiritual beings. Just as sound, in a certain sense, ascends to a higher sphere when it transforms from a musical tone into the human spoken word, so it is also in the context of the world: the harmony of the spheres becomes something higher when it becomes the Word of the world, the Logos. It becomes so when everything that acts as the harmony of the spheres becomes Word, becomes Logos. Now, in the physical organization of the human being, the next highest element—physiologically speaking—is the blood. Just as the muscle is woven into the harmonies of the spheres, so too is the blood woven into the Logos and can increasingly become an expression of the Logos, as has been the case unconsciously since the Incarnation. That is to say, there is a tendency on the physical plane for the human being to consciously perceive the expression of the Logos in his blood, which is the expression of the “I.” And when human beings in the sixth cultural epoch have come to know themselves as spiritual beings, they will no longer cling to the fantasy that the muscles are set in motion by the motor nerves, but will recognize that the muscles are moved out of the sphere’s harmony that has become personal. And in the seventh cultural epoch, people will then be able to feel the Logos permeating them right down into their blood, and only then will they be able to grasp what is actually expressed in the Gospel of John. For it is only in the seventh cultural epoch that the Gospel of John will be recognized for its scientific rigor. And then, once the scientific nature of the Gospel of John has been recognized, people will gradually come to feel that the first words of the Gospel of John ought to appear in every book on physiology, and that everything in science ought to be grounded in these words. It is best to say: We can already understand much of it today, but by no means everything. We can hold it up as an ideal.

[ 27 ] From everything I have spoken about today, we can see that the Gospel of Matthew was to be regarded as particularly inspiring for the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, that we, however, must regard the Gospel of Mark as inspiring especially for our own time, that the Gospel of Luke will become important for the next, the sixth, cultural epoch, and that we must prepare ourselves for this, because everything that is to come to pass in the future must already have its seeds in the past. And everything that must come in the course of human development will, through our understanding of the Gospel of John, find its full expression toward the seventh epoch, toward the onset of the new catastrophe. That is why it will be particularly important for us to regard the Gospel of Mark as a book that can guide us in many things we need to practice and in many things we must guard against. It is precisely the passages of the Gospel of Mark, in their brevity and concise style, that reveal to us the significance of the Christ impulse for the human “I” and the way this impulse takes root in the human “I.”

[ 28 ] It is important that we realize that it is our task to comprehend Christ in the Spirit, that we must understand how Christ will reveal Himself at various points in the future. For our time, an attempt has been made to articulate this task in the passages of the Rosicrucian Mystery “The Gate of Initiation,” in the words attributed to the seer Theodora. Here we have something like a recurrence of the event that Paul experienced on the road to Damascus. And it would be nothing but an expression of the materialism of our time to believe that the Christ impulse is to be lived out once more in a material, physical human body. We can learn from the Gospel of Mark—which again serves as a very special admonition for our time—that we must guard against this. And even though much of what is contained in the Gospel of Mark has already applied to the past, its statements nevertheless apply—particularly in the high moral sense indicated—to our immediate future. There we will see, in the spiritual realm, the necessity of the spiritual influence that must emanate from Spiritual Science.

[ 29 ] If we grasp the following words spiritually in their true sense, we will be able to apply them specifically to our own age and its immediate future: “For those days will be a time of tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of creation—which God created—and such as will never be again.” We must apply these words to human understanding: all tribulation lies ahead in the future, which will express the Truth in its spiritual reality. “And if the Lord had not cut short those days, nothing would be saved that is to be spiritual nourishment; but for the sake of the elect, He has shortened the days for these elect.” And then it says: “If anyone says to you at that time, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it.” In this way, the Gospel of Mark points to a possible materialistic conception of Christ. “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and perform signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. But be on your guard! See, I have foretold everything to you!”

[ 30 ] The onslaught of materialism will be so strong that it will be necessary for human souls to gain the strength that can truly withstand the Word: False Christs and false prophets will appear! - But when people then say, “Here is the Christ!”—then those who have placed themselves under the proper influence of Spiritual Science will also be able to heed the warning: “If anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’—do not believe it!”