The Rudolf Steiner Archive

To a very great extent the form in which Rudolf Steiner elected to publish the results of his spiritual research was commentary rather than expository. Both in the depth of their penetration and in the width of their reach his twelve lectures on the Gospel of St. Matthew present a matchless example of what he could do with this form. They are correspondingly difficult to summarize. The light here shed from a single steady source falls, for instance, on the much-discussed pre-Christian sect of the Essenes and their prophetic understanding of the whole destiny and function of the Hebrew nation; on the two Saviours who were to become one in order that that destiny might be consummated; on a little-known martyr of the first century B.C., Jeschu ben Pandira, and, through him, at once on the hidden truths underlying the mysterious genealogies in the opening chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke and on the great main stream of oriental religion and philosophy and its true relation to Christianity.

As the course draws towards its close, it turns rather to the mystery of the ‘kingdom’ of the Son of Man and the mental and volitional threshold which human personality must cross in order to realise that kingdom and, in doing so, find its own heaven-born identity.

It has been widely suggested that a more or less conscious quest for personal identity is the positive element that underlies the chaos of modern literature and art. Here the twentieth century could benefit by recalling the outstanding discovery of the nineteenth: that understanding, to be fruitful, must combine with the merely existential a genetic comprehension of its subject. As these lectures unfold before the attentive reader the great Judaeo-Christian drama of the historical emergence, first of racial identity (the familial self-consciousness of the Hebrew nation) and then, as its transformation, of that individual spiritual identity which is pointed to in the Lord's Prayer and more inexorably in the Sermon on the Mount, the numerous points that have hitherto separately caught the light unite into a single flood; and he realises that this is no sporadic commentary on selected texts that he has been studying but one of the great religious documents of all time.

1965
O.B.

The post-Atlantean migrations. The Iranians and Turanians. Zarathustra

This is the third occasion on which I have had the opportunity of speaking in Switzerland of the greatest Event in the history of the earth and of man. The first time was at Basle, when I spoke from the aspect of this Event presented in the Gospel of John; the second was in accordance with descriptions of the event given by Luke; and now, the third time, the impulse for what I have to say will come from the Gospel of Matthew.

I have often pointed out how important it is that accounts of this Event are preserved in four documents apparently so different from one another. But what gives opportunity for so much adverse criticism from the side of the materialistic thought of the present day is precisely what strikes us as important according to our anthroposophical outlook. No one should permit himself to describe any fact or being that has been viewed only from one point. A man may photograph a tree from one side, but the result cannot be regarded as a true replica of the tree. If, however, he photographs it from four sides, he can, by comparing the four pictures, form a comprehensive idea of the appearance of the tree. If this is true as regards ordinary external things, how should one suppose that an Event comprising in itself such a sum of occurrences—the fullest measure of all the things essential to human existence—can be really grasped if described only from one side. Contradictions between the Gospels are only apparent; the explanation of them lies in the fact that each writer knew he was capable of describing one side only of this mighty Event. By recognizing this fact, and by comparing the different accounts, it is possible gradually to gain a complete picture.

Let us us then approach this, the greatest Event in earthly evolution, with patience, and with confidence in the four descriptions given in the New Testament, trusting that we may be able to enrich our knowledge of it through them.

It is customary to begin by giving an historical account of the origin of the Gospels. It will, however, give us the best result if what is to be said of the origin of the Matthew Gospel is said towards the end of the course, for as is natural, and as other sciences show, the comprehension of a thing should precede its history. No one, for instance, can usefully approach the history of arithmetic who has no knowledge of arithmetic. In other cases it is universal to place historical descriptions at the end of a study; where this is not done, the arrangement contradicts the natural needs of human knowledge. Thus an attempt will be made here, first, to prove the contents of the Gospel of Matthew, and afterwards to examine its historical origin.

When we allow the Gospels to affect us, even externally, we are soon aware of something distinctive in the way each is expressed, and this feeling is intensified when we keep in mind the lectures previously given on the Gospels of John and Luke. In seeking to understand the mighty communications of the Gospel of John, we feel overpowered by its spiritual grandeur; and must confess that in this Gospel—because it tells of the highest attainable by human wisdom—we find the highest to which human understanding can gradually attain. In it man seems to raise his eyes to a summit of world existence and say to himself: ‘However small I may be as man, the Gospel of John permits me to divine that something has entered my soul with which I am united, and which overcomes me with a feeling of the infinite.’ The spiritual greatness of a Cosmic Being with whom humanity is related sinks into the human soul when we speak of the Gospel of John.

Recall your feelings on reading what was said concerning the Gospel of Luke; what filled your soul then was something quite different.

In the Gospel of John it is chiefly the revelation of spiritual greatness that arouses longing in the receptive human soul, and fills it as with a breath of magic; in the the Gospel of Luke we encounter an inwardness of soul-nature, the intensity of the power of love and of sacrifice in the world when these are experienced by the human heart. John describes the Being of Christ Jesus in its spiritual grandeur. Luke shows us this Being in its immeasurable capacity of sacrifice, and gives us some idea of the nature of that force which as sacrificial love pulsates through the world in the way other forces do, permeating the whole evolution of the world and all the deeds of men.

We live mainly in the element feeling when we let the influence of the Gospel of Luke work in us; and it is the element of understanding, speaking of the ultimate ends and aims of knowledge, that meets us in the Gospel of John. John speaks more to our understanding, Luke to our hearts. This can be felt from the Gospels themselves, but it is also our endeavour to give out what we are able to add to these documents through the revelation of spiritual science. Those to whom these Gospels are only words have not by any means heard all that can be heard. There was a profound difference both in language and style between the cycle of lectures on the Gospels of John and that of Luke. These must again be different when we approach the Gospel of Matthew.

In the Gospel of Luke, it is as if all that ever existed in the evolution of mankind as human love were seen to be concentrated within the Being, Who at the beginning of our era, is called Christ Jesus.

To merely external perception the Gospel of Matthew appears more many-sided than the other two, even more many-sided than the three others, but when we come to consider the Gospel of Mark we shall find that unlike the others it is in a certain sense one-sided.

The Gospel of John reveals the greatness of the wisdom of Christ Jesus; the Gospel of Luke, the power of His love; the Gospel of Mark, mainly the power of the creative forces and the splendour permeating universal space. From this Gospel we divine something stupendous in the out-pouring of the cosmic forces which seem to rush towards us from all directions of space.

While that which breathes from Luke fills the soul with inward warmth, and that which springs from John fills it with hope, that which emerges from the Gospel of Mark is the overwhelming power and splendour of the cosmic forces before which the soul feels almost shattered. All three elements are present in the Gospel of Matthew—the deep warmth of the love-element, the hopeful reaching forth of the understanding, and the majestic greatness of the universe. But in a certain sense they are present in a weaker form and therefore seem to be more closely related to humanity than is the case in the other Gospels. Whereas we might be overwhelmed so that we almost prostrate ourselves before the love, the wisdom and the greatness of the other three, we feel more able to stand erect before the Gospel of Matthew, even to approach and place ourselves alongside of it. We are nowhere shattered by the Matthew Gospel, although it also brings something of that which in the other three Gospels can work shatteringly. It is, therefore, the most human document of them all, and more than the others it presents Christ Jesus as man. It is in a sense a commentary on the others, and by making clear what is too great for human understanding in the other Gospels, it throws a remarkable light upon them.

Let us take what is now to be said as referring more to the style of the different Gospels. The Gospel of Luke tells how the highest degree of love and sacrifice was reached in the Being to Whom we give the name of Christ Jesus. how this flowed out into the world and into men, and how for the salvation of men a human outpouring came down from out the primeval ages of earthly development, and it describes this same stream up to the earliest beginnings of man.

In the Gospel of John we are shown how man can look with his wisdom and knowledge to a beginning, and also to a goal, to which this understanding can attain; we are shown this from the very beginning of the Gospel, for here the description of Christ Jesus points to the creative Logos itself. The most exalted spiritual conception our minds can reach is defined in the opening sentences of this Gospel. It is otherwise in the Gospel of Matthew. The Gospel of Matthew treats of the man, Jesus of Nazareth; it refers at the very beginning to the origin of his lineage, showing how he sprang from a definite point in history. It traces the line of descent in a certain people. It shows how all the qualities we find in Jesus had been concentrated within the race of Abraham; how for three times fourteen generations the best it had to give had wed in the blood of this people, to prepare it for the perfect flowering of the highest human powers in one human individual.

While John points to the eternal quality of the Logos, Luke to the immensity of human evolution, taking us back to its very beginning—the Gospel of Matthew tells us of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, who belonged to a people able to trace the descent of its qualities through three times fourteen generations—to Abraham, the founder of the race.

It is only possible to hint here at what is necessary before any real understanding of what the Gospel of Mark seeks to explain, can be reached. This is, that we must learn in a certain way to know the cosmic forces streaming through the whole course of the world's development. For in this Gospel, Christ Jesus is presented to us as an essence from the cosmos working within a human agency; an essence of that which previously had dwelt in the infinity of space as cosmic force. Mark seeks to describe the acts of Christ as an extract of cosmic activity; to him the divine man, Christ Jesus, walking on the earth, is a quintessence of the Sun-force in its boundless activity. Thus it is stellar forces working through a human agency which Mark describes.

In a certain way, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew touches also upon this stellar activity, for, at the very beginning, when describing the birth of Jesus of Nazareth he leads us to a point where we are shown that cosmic facts are connected with the birth of a man; this is, when he speaks of the star guiding the three Magii to the birthplace of Jesus.

But he does not describe a cosmic activity as is done in the Gospel of Mark; he does not demand that we raise our eyes to this cosmic activity; he shows us three men—the Magi—and the effect these cosmic events had upon them. We can turn to these three men and divine their feelings. Thus, if we would rise to what is cosmic, Matthew directs our gaze, not to boundless space, but to man, to the action of the cosmos in human hearts.

These hints should only be accepted as showing the difference in style of the Gospels. The main characteristic of each Gospel is that it gives a description from a different point of view, and each has its own special manner and method of describing this, the greatest event in human and earthly evolution.

The most important facts at the commencement of the Gospel of Matthew concern the near blood-relations of Jesus of Nazareth. We are told how the physical person of Jesus was created; and how the qualities of a whole people, since its originator Abraham, were contained as an extract in one human being, Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore it had to be shown how the blood of Jesus reached back by way of the generations to the Father of the Hebrew people; and how on this account the nature of this people—that for which they particularly stood in regard to human and earthly evolution—was concentrated within the physical personality of Jesus of Nazareth. It is necessary, therefore, in order to understand the point of view of the writer of the Gospel, to know something of the nature of the Hebrew people, and to be able to answer the question: ‘What was it that the Hebrew people, by virtue of their special character, were able to impart to mankind?’ External materialistic history gives little attention to the facts emphasized here. The fact that no one people in human evolution has the same task as another, that each has its own special mission, is hardly noticed; to those who understand human evolution, however, this is all-important. All peoples, down even to physical details, are formed in accordance with their destiny. Thus the bodies of any one race reveal a certain construction in their physical as well as in their etheric and astral sheaths; and the way these interpenetrate one another produces the most appropriate instrument for that people's contribution to humanity.

The question can now be modified to: ‘What was the special contribution of the Hebrew people to humanity, and how was this built into the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth?’

To understand correctly the answer to this question it will be necessary to enter more exactly into the whole evolution of mankind, already dealt with in an Outline of Occult Science, and in other courses of lectures. It is well to take the Atlantean catastrophe as a starting point. The Atlanteans journeyed from the west towards the east; one principal stream passed through Europe to the regions round the Caspian Sea in Asia; the other on a more southerly course, through the Africa of to-day. A kind of union of these two wanderings took place in yonder Asia, as when two floods meet and form a kind of whirlpool.

The thing that chiefly interests us is the whole soul-formation and point of view of these peoples, or at least the main part of those who journeyed from ancient Atlantis to the East.

The whole attitude of soul of these people of the first post-Atlantean Age was quite different from that of the men of to-day. They possessed a more clairvoyant perception of their environment than was later the case. To a certain extent they could perceive the spirit. What to-day is perceived by physical sight was then seen in a more spiritual manner. Yet it is important to note that their clairvoyance differed again in certain respects from that of the more ancient Atlanteans when this development was at its height. During the bloom of their development the Atlanteans had been able to see into the spiritual world in a very pure way, and to receive spiritual revelations as an impulse for good. The greater their capacity for perception, the greater the impulse for good they received through it; the less they were able to perceive, the less the impulse for good they received. The changes that took place on the earth during the last third of the Atlantean period, and at the opening of the post-Atlantean Age, were associated with a weakening of this clairvoyant faculty. The perception of what was good gradually diminished, until it was only retained in a high degree by those who underwent a special training in the schools of initiation. For the majority, clairvoyant perception became at last too weak to perceive the good and saw instead what was bad—the tempting and misleading forces of existence. There was indeed, in certain regions peopled by these post-Atlantean races, a form of clairvoyance that was by no means good; it was clairvoyance that was really itself a form of temptation.

With the decline of clairvoyant power was associated the gradual development or blossoming of sense-perception as is normal for the men of to-day. The things that were seen by the men of early post-Atlantean times with ordinary eyes and are also seen by the men of to-day, were not then in the least misleading, because the soul-forces now open to temptation did not as yet exist. The vision of external objects which gives men so much enjoyment to-day, even if it is misleading, was not felt by the post-Atlantean to be a temptation. On the other hand, he was led into temptation by the inherited tendencies of the old clairvoyance. The good side of the spiritual world he hardly saw any more, but the deceptive and misleading forces of Lucifer and Ahriman worked on him with great power. Thus he beheld the forces and powers which tempted and deceived—the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces—by the power of the old inherited forces of clairvoyance. The outcome of this was that the leaders and guides of human evolution, who received from the Mysteries the wisdom by which they were able to guide men, undertook, in spite of this fact, to lead them ever more and more towards understanding and goodness.

Now the people who had spread eastwards after the great Atlantean catastrophe were at very different stages of evolution; the farther east we go, the more moral and more highly spiritual was their evolution. External perception worked on them educatively with ever greater clearness: it was like the opening of a new world, revealing as it did the vastness and splendour of the external world of the senses. This increased the farther east they travelled, and was more especially noticeable in those who dwelt north of the India of to-day towards the Caspian Sea, as far as the Oxus and Jaxartes. Here in this central region of Asia a people settled who provided the material for many nationalities which then spread in all directions, as well as of that people often mentioned by us in regard to their spiritual world-concept—the ancient Indian race.

In this settlement in Central Asia even soon after the Atlantean catastrophe, and indeed partly during the catastrophe itself, the sense for external actuality became very strongly developed. At the same time, however, among those who incarnated in this part of the world there was still a living recollection of what they had experienced in Atlantis. This recollection was strongest among those who then journeyed down to India. On the one hand, they had a great and real understanding for the splendour of the external world, while, on the other hand, they were a people in whom the remembrance of the old spiritual powers of perception of Atlantean times was most strongly developed. Therefore there arose in them an intense desire for the spiritual world which they remembered, and it was comparatively easy for them to gaze again into this world. Compared to the reality of the spiritual world, they felt that what the external world presented was illusion—Maya. Therefore, there was an inclination among these people to undervalue the sense-world and to do everything possible that by training—that is, by Yoga—their souls might again be raised to what in the age of Atlantis they had received directly from the spiritual world.

To undervalue the external world and treat it as illusion, and so to develop the impulse to penetrate to what was spiritual, was less marked among the peoples who remained in the north of India. The position of this community was tragic. The endowments of the Indian peoples consisted in the fact that they could go through a Yoga training with comparative ease, and by this means could again enter into the realms in which they had dwelt during the Atlantean Age. It was easy for them to overcome what they regarded as illusion. They overcame it through knowledge. The height of knowledge for them consisted in the conviction: ‘This world of the senses is illusion, is Maya; but when I take trouble to develop my soul, I can attain to a world that is behind the world of the senses Thus the Indian overcame, through an inner process, what he regarded as illusion, and this conquest was the object of his desire.

It was different with regard to the northern peoples named by history in a narrow sense, Aryans. These were the Persians, Medes, Bactrians, and others. In them the power of external sight was strongly developed, also the power of the intellect; but the inward urge to develop themselves through Yoga and thus attain what the Atlantean had lost, was not specially strong in them. The living memory of the past was not so keen in these northern peoples that they should set themselves to overcome the illusion of the world through knowledge. These northern people had not the same soul-nature as the Indian. The Iranians, Persians, or Medes felt what we can express in modern language as follows: If once we dwelt as men in a spiritual world, perceiving spiritual realities, and now find ourselves in a physical world which we see with our eyes and understand by means of the intellect bound to our brain, the cause of this is not to be sought in man alone; what has to be overcome cannot be overcome only in man's inner nature. The Iranian felt: It is not only in man that a change has taken place; everything in Nature, everything on earth was also changed at the descent of man. It was therefore not enough for man simply to say: All this is Maya, is illusion, let us raise ourselves to the spiritual world! We shall then certainly have changed ourselves, but not all that has become changed in the world around us.’ So the Iranian did not say: ‘Around me is Maya on every side—I will rise above this Maya, will overcome it in myself, and so attain to spiritual worlds.’ No, he said: ‘Man belongs to the world around him; he is but a part of it. Therefore if that which is divine in him, and which descended with him from spiritual heights is to be changed, then not only man must be changed back again, but everything that surrounds him must also be changed back to what it was.’ This feeling gave this people a special impulse to enter energetically into the task of transforming and changing the world. While the Indian said: ‘The world has changed, deteriorated; what we now behold is Maya,’ the people of the north said: ‘Certainly the world has come down, but we must so change it that it is made into something spiritual once more!’

Contemplation and wisdom were the fundamental characteristics of the Indian people; they had no further interest in the world which they regarded as Maya, or illusion. Activity, energy, and the desire to transform and work upon external nature was what characterized the Iranians and the other northern peoples. They said: ‘What we see around us has come down from divinity, and the mission of humanity is to lead it back to this divinity once more.’

This tendency, which was already perceptible in the Iranian people, was raised to its highest form and inspired with the greatest energy through the spiritual leaders who proceeded from the Mysteries.

What took place east and south of the Caspian Sea can only be fully understood, even externally, when it is compared with what took place to the north, that is, in the regions we to-day call Siberia and Russia, and the regions extending even into Europe. Here a people dwelt who had preserved to a great extent their ancient clairvoyance, men who, in a certain sense, held the balance between the old and the new, between the old spiritual perception and the new sense-perception associated with rational thought. Many of them were still capable of looking directly into the spiritual world; but for the majority, indeed for the greater part of humanity, spiritual perception had deteriorated to a lower astral clairvoyance. This had a certain consequence for human evolution. (The men who had this kind of clairvoyance were of a quite distinct type; through it they acquired a distinctive character. Their environment urged them to demand the necessities of life from Nature with the minimum of exertion. They did not doubt the existence of spiritual beings in what they beheld, for they perceived them as man to-day perceives plants and animals; and in the existence in which these divine beings had placed them they demanded provision for themselves without much personal effort. Much could be said regarding the outward expression of the mental attitude in the peoples endowed with this astral clairvoyance. At this time, which it is now important for us to consider, most of those who were endowed with a clairvoyance that had fallen into decadence, were nomadic peoples, people without a settled dwelling-place, wandering shepherds careless of earthly possessions, and ready to destroy anything if its destruction might serve their needs. Such people were not suited to raise the level of culture, to conserve the gifts of Nature, or cultivate the earth.

Hence arose the greatest opposition that has existed in post-Atlantean civilization, the great opposition between these more northern people and the Iranians. A longing arose in the Iranians to take hold of their environment and to live a settled life; to satisfy their human needs by work, and transform Nature by their human spiritual forces. Immediately to the north of them wandered the people who were on what one might call familiar terms with the spiritual beings, who disliked labour, and were not interested in advancing the culture of the physical world. This is perhaps the greatest difference that external history has to show in early post-Atlantean times and is purely the result of a difference in soul-development. The contrast is recognized in history, the great contrast between Iranian and Turanian; but the cause is not known. Here we now have the causes.

The Turanians in the north towards Siberia, who had inherited a lower astral clairvoyance, had no desire to establish external civilization, and their passive disposition, influenced by many priests who practised magic, led them frequently to occupy themselves with lower magic, and even black magic. To the south, the Iranians, with an inclination to influence the sense-world by their human spiritual force, were working in a primitive way at the beginnings of civilization.

This is the great contrast between Iranians and Turanians. These facts are expressed in a beautiful myth, the legend of Djemjid. Djemjid was a king who led his people from the north towards Iran, and who received from the God, whom he called Ahura Mazdao, a golden dagger, by means of which he was to fulfil his mission on earth.

In this golden dagger of King Djemjid, who tried to educate his people beyond the mass of the backward Turanians, we have to recognize the gift of an impulse towards a knowledge connected with man's external forces; a knowledge that sought to redeem his decadent powers and permeate them with spiritual forces that can be acquired by him on the physical plane. This golden dagger has, like a plough, turned the earth over, has transformed it into arable land, has brought about the earliest and most primitive inventions, and has been the impulse for all the attainments of civilization of which man is so proud. The golden dagger received by King Djemjid from Ahura Mazdao was something of very great importance. It represents a force given to man by which he can manipulate and transform external nature.

The giver of the golden dagger was the same being who inspired Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, or Zerdutsch, the great leader of the Iranians. It was he who in primeval times, soon after the Atlantean catastrophe, poured out upon this people the treasures he drew from the Holy Mysteries, that they might be induced to use the forces of the human spirit upon external culture; thus giving to those who had lost the Atlantean clairvoyant vision, a new outlook and a new hope of the spiritual world. He opened out a new path to these people. He pointed towards the sunlight as the external body of a high Spiritual Being, and to distinguish it from the small human aura, he called it the 'Great Aura' Ahura Mazdao. In his teaching he indicated that this as yet remote Being, would one day descend to earth in order to unite with its substance, and that this would be an historical event affecting the whole future of mankind. Thus in speaking of Ahura Mazdao, Zarathustra referred to the Being known later in history as the Christ. Such was the mighty mission of Zarathustra.

To the new post-Atlantean humanity, who had lost touch with divinity, he revealed the way of return to what was spiritual. He gave them the hope, through power poured down to them on the physical plane, of yet attaining to spirituality. The ancient Indian could attain to spirituality in a certain way through Yoga-training, but a new way was to be opened for men by Zarathustra.

Now Zarathustra had an important patron or protector—but I must emphasize that in speaking here of Zarathustra I do not refer to the man of that name who lived in the time of Darius, but to an individuality who was placed, even by the Greeks, about 5000 years before the Trojan War. This Zarathustra of those far-off times had a protector who may be described by the name that became customary later, that of Guschtasb.

In Zarathustra we have, therefore, a mighty priestly nature, one who pointed the way to the great Sun Spirit, Ahura Mazdao, the Being who is to guide humanity back from the externally physical to the spiritual plane. And in Guschtasb we have a kingly nature, one capable of doing all that was necessary in the external world to spread abroad the mighty inspirations of Zarathustra.

It was therefore inevitable that these inspirations and intentions should bring the Iranians into conflict with the people dwelling to the north—the Turanians. And actually through this conflict arose one of the greatest wars that have ever been fought, of which external history records rery little, since it falls in primeval ages. It lasted, not for tens, but for hundreds of years, and from it arose a certain attitude that persisted for a long time in Central Asia: an attitude which must be expressed somewhat as follows.

The Iranians—the people who followed Zarathustra—would have expressed this attitude in the following way: ‘All around us, wherever we look, we see a world that has most surely come down from what is divinely spiritual, but all we now see has declined from its former high estate. We must acknowledge that the animal, plant, and mineral worlds were formerly more noble than they are now, that they have fallen into decadence. Man, however, has the hope of leading these back again to what they were.’ Let as try and translate this feeling that dwelt in the typical Iranian into our language. Speaking as a teacher to his pupils he might say: ‘Look at everything around you—formerly this was of a spiritual nature; it has now fallen into decadence. Take, for instance, the wolf. The animal that is in the wolf you see, as a creature of the sense-world, has declined from what it once was. Formerly it did not show bad qualities; but you, when you have developed good qualities and have acquired spiritual power, will be able to tame this animal; you will be able to implant your own qualities in it, and tame it, making of the wolf a dog to serve you.’ In the wolf and in the dog there are two natures which correspond to two great tendencies in the world. Here are two opposing forces. On the one side are those who employ their spiritual forces to work upon the world, who were able to tame animals and raise them to a higher stage; on the other, those who instead of using their powers for this purpose leave the animals to sink lower and lower. The one can be seen in the following mood: ‘If I leave Nature as she is, then she will sink lower and ever lower; and everything will be wild and savage. But I can raise my spiritual eyes to a good Power, whom I acknowledge, and this good Power then helps me, and I can then lead up again what is deteriorating. This Power to whom I can look up can give me hope for further development'. The Iranian identified this Power with Ahura Mazdao, and he said to himself: ‘Everything a man can do to ennoble the forces of Nature, to elevate them, can be done, if he will attach himself to Ahura Mazdao, to the power of Ormuzd. Ormuzd is an ascending stream. But if a man leaves Nature as she is, then everything becomes a wilderness and reverts to savagery. This comes from Ahriman.’ Add now the following mood developed in the Iranian regions: ‘To the north of us many people are going about; they are in the service of Ahriman. They are Ahriman's people, who only roam about gathering what Nature offers them; they will not raise a hand towards the spiritualization of Nature. But we wish to unite ourselves with Ormuzd, Ahura Mazdao.’

So a duality was felt at that time to be rising in the world. Thus it was that the Iranians, the Zarathustra-men felt, and they expressed these feelings in laws or rules. They wished to arrange their life so that eternal law gave, in its expression, the impulse upwards. That was the external result of Zarathustrianism. Here we see the contrast between Iran and Turan.

The profound difference between the Turanians and Iranians explains the war between Ardschasb, king of Turania, and Guschtasb, king of Irania, the protector of Zarathustra, of which occult history gives so many and such precise accounts.

The most important fact to be grasped in this connection is the wonderful and widespread influence of Zarathustra on the soul-life of mankind.

I had in the first place to describe the nature, the whole milieu, within which Zarathustra was placed; for you are aware that the individual who incarnated in the blood which passed from Abraham through three times fourteen generations, and who appears in the Gospel of Matthew as Jesus of Nazareth, was the Zarathustra individuality. He is met with here for the first time in post-Atlantean times, and we are faced with the question: ‘Why was the blood which flowed through the generations from Abraham in Asia Minor best suited for the subsequent return of Zarathustra in bodily form?’ For one of the subsequent incarnations of Zarathustra is that of Jesus of Nazareth. Before this question is asked it was necessary to ask and answer another regarding his special essence, the essence which found expression in this blood. In Zarathustra this special essence which incarnated in the blood of the Hebrew people is to be found.

In the next lecture we will explain why it must be precisely from this blood, from this race, that Zarathustra drew his bodily nature.

The secrets of space and time. The Moses and Hermes Wisdom. Comparison of the Turanians and the Hebrews.¹

In the opening lines of the Gospel of Matthew emphasis is laid on the descent of the physical nature of the Jesus of this Gospel from Abraham. The fact of most importance to the spiritual scientist is that by inheritance throughout thrice fourteen generations this individual bore within him an extract of the whole race of Abraham. He is the same individual who is spoken of as Zoroaster or Zarathustra.

In the last lecture we described the external conditions in which Zarathustra worked. Something must now be said of the opinions and ideas that obtained in his immediate circle.

In that district where in very far-off ages Zarathustra worked, conceptions and ideas flourished that, in their broad outlines, were of profound importance. It needs but a few extracts from what since earliest times has been regarded as the teaching of the first Zarathustra to show how deeply these affected the thought of the whole post-Atlantean period. Even external history relates how the teaching of Zarathustra proceeded from two principles, which we describe as the principle of Ormuzd, the beneficent Being of Light, and Ahriman, the dark Being of Evil. At the same time historical descriptions of this religious system trace the origin of these two principles back to a single common principle Zeruane Akarene. It is customary to translate Zeruane Akarene as ‘Uncreated Time.’ It may, therefore, be said that the teaching of Zarathustra leads back to an original principle, in which we have to recognize quiescent Time, Time flowing on in its universal course. The very meaning of the word shows us that it is unnecessary to question further as to the origin of this Time, this revolution of Time.

True, the external abstract thinking of man will hardly ever refrain from inquiring again and again after the cause of this cause, forever driving his conceptions back, forever seeking the primal cause. But the spiritual scientist realizes through deep meditation that questionings about the beginnings of things must cease somewhere. To continue them beyond a certain point is merely to play with thinking, as is shown clearly in Occult Science. It is stated there that when wheel tracks are seen on a road it may well be asked whence they came. The answer will probably be that they were caused by the wheels of a carriage. A query as to the reason for the wheels on the carriage may produce the information that they were needed to enable it to travel along the road. A further inquiry as to the cause of this may bring the reply that someone wished to travel along the road. Ultimately we arrive at the resolve of the man which led him to travel along the road. Here it is advisable to stop, for further inquiries would inevitably lead to losing one's way in a maze of questions.

It is the same as regards great universal questions—a halt must be made somewhere; made at what lies at the fountain of the teaching of Zarathustra; at Time, calm, onflowing Time. Then, according to Zarathustra, there proceeded from Time, Ormuzd, the principle of Light, and Ahriman, the evil principle of Darkness. The profound meaning underlying this Iranian or old Persian idea is that the wickedness in the world, all that in its physical form is described as darkness, was not originally wicked, dark and evil. In the same way the wolf was originally good, but when left to itself it degenerated so that Ahrimanic forces could be active in it. To the Iranians or Persians evil came to pass through something that at one time—a time suited to it—was good, retaining its form on into a later age with which it was out of harmony. To them, all that was black and evil arose through a form which was good in one age, continuing on into a later age, instead of adapting itself to change. Through the clashing of such forms of being with the more advanced ones of a later time, the struggle between good and evil arose. Evil is therefore not absolute evil, but misplaced good, something that was good in an earlier time. There, where earlier conditions did not as yet come into collision with later conditions, enduring Time rolled on, Time that was undifferentiated, not yet separated into individual moments.

Such is the very important point of view expressed in Zarathustrianism; and this should be recognized as the fundamental principle of the teaching of Zarathustra among the earliest post-Atlantean peoples, and must be associated with the facts given in the first lecture. The people influenced by him had, above all, insight into the necessity for the birth of this duality from out the uniform stream of Time, and for the coming of opposition, which opposition would only be overcome in the course of time. We see the necessity that the new should arise and the old remain behind; that in the balance between the old and the new, the goal of the universe, and especially the goal of the Earth, will gradually be attained. It is this point of view that lies at the root of all that higher development which has sprung from Zarathustrianism.

The impression made by the influence of Zarathustra on subsequent ages was strong and deep. It was possible through the fact, that having reached the highest summit of initiation attainable at that time, he had also trained two pupils. These pupils I have spoken of before. To one he taught everything connected with the mystery of Space as it is spread around us, and therewith the mystery of all things contemporaneous. To the other he imparted the mystery of the flight of Time, the mystery of development and of evolution. I have also already indicated that at a definite point of time of such a discipleship as existed between these two great disciples and Zarathustra, something quite especial enters: the teacher can sacrifice part of his own being to his disciples. And Zarathustra, as he was in his Zarathustra-age, gave up to his pupils something of his own being, he sacrificed his own etheric and astral bodies. His individuality, his own inmost being, he retained for future incarnations; but his remarkable astral ‘garment,’ in which he had lived as Zarathustra in the earliest post-Atlantean periods, which had attained such a degree of perfection, and was so permeated by his whole being that instead of dispersing like that of an ordinary man, it remained intact—he gave this to another. The depth and power of the individuality of this great Initiate made this possible, and this is why the astral body of Zarathustra persisted. Similarly his etheric body remained also intact.

According to occult investigation, one of these pupils, the one who had received knowledge concerning the mystery of Space, of all that fills space contemporaneously, reincarnated as that personality known to history as Thoth, or Hermes of the Egyptians. Hermes had not only to establish in himself what he had received from Zarathustra in an earlier incarnation, but he had to establish it more firmly; this he was able to do in the Holy Mysteries, because he had received into himself the astral sheath of the great Initiate. Permeated by the teaching of Zarathustra, and filled by his astral nature, the individuality of this pupil was born again as Hermes, the inaugurator of the civilization of Egypt. We have, therefore, a direct member or principle of the being of Zarathustra in the Egyptian Hermes. With this principle, and with what he had brought with him of the teaching of Zarathustra, Hermes was able to give the impulse for all that was best and of greatest moment in Egyptian civilization. Naturally, a suitable race was necessary in order that the work of the messenger of Zarathustra might be effective. A race promising a fruitful soil for the development of this work could only be found among those Atlantean wanderers who had taken the more southern way and had settled in East Africa and had retained much of their old clairvoyance. The essential soul-nature of this race was quick to receive the wisdom of Hermes, and in this way Egyptian civilization arose. It was a very special type of civilization. You must try to realize how all that is included in the mysteries of contemporaneous things, of that which exists side by side in space, was contained in the wisdom of Hermes—all this had been entrusted to him as a precious gift from Zarathustra, so that in his own being Hermes possessed the most important teachings that Zarathustra had to impart.

It has often been stated that the most characteristic teaching of Zarathustra referred to the external sunlight and the external physical light-body of the Sun as the outer sheath of an exalted Spiritual Being. What was confided to Hermes was the mystery of that which as Being, underlies all Nature, all space and everything contemporaneous, yet which advances ever in time from epoch to epoch, and reveals itself in certain epochs Hermes knew what comes from the Sun, and what through the Sun continues to develop. This knowledge he implanted in the souls of the Egyptians, who retained a memory of the Atlantean Sun-Mysteries, and were, therefore, specially adapted to receive his teachings. All this, within the advancing line of evolution, was in the soul of Hermes, as well as in all those souls ripe to absorb his wisdom.

The mission of the second of Zarathustra's pupils was very different. Upon him had been bestowed the secrets of the passing of Time. He had to experience within himself the conflict between the old and the new, how in evolution something was active as opposition, as polarity. As already stated this pupil had also received part of the being of Zarathustra; on reincarnating he could therefore receive the sacrifice of Zarathustra.

Thus, while the individuality of Zarathustra remained intact, his sheaths were separated from him, they endured and were not dispersed for they were held together by such a mighty individual. This second pupil—to whom was imparted the wisdom concerning Time in contradistinction to that concerning Space—received at a specific moment of his reincarnated existence the etheric body of Zarathustra, which had been sacrificed in the same way s his astral body. This reborn pupil was none other than Moses. Moses received in quite early childhood the fully preserved etheric body of Zarathustra.

Our religious documents which are really founded on occultism contain all this, though in a veiled form. In them we find suggestions of the secrets revealed through occult investigation. As Moses was the reincarnated pupil of Zarathustra and had received his etheric body, something quite unusual had to take place in him. This is recorded in the Scriptures. Before he could receive the ordinary impressions from his surroundings like another human being, before he could descend with his individuality so as to receive impressions from the external world, there had to percolate into his being that which he was to receive as a marvellous inheritance from Zarathustra. This fact is expressed in the symbolic legend which relates that Moses was placed in a casket and lowered to the river. This should be accepted as indicating a remarkable initiation.

Initiation consists in a man being withdrawn from the world for a certain time, during which he slowly absorbs what has been given to him. While thus withdrawn, Moses was able to be united at the right moment with the etheric body of Zarathustra that had been preserved for this purpose. The wonderful wisdom concerning Time, the gift of Zarathustra in an earlier period, was then able to blossom within him; he gave this wisdom to his people in a series of pictures fitted to their understanding. Hence from Moses we have those mighty pictures of Genesis, those imaginations dealing with the wisdom of Time, of the ages as they succeed one another, received from Zarathustra. This was a re-born knowledge—a re-born wisdom—received by him, and was firmly established in his inner nature since he had received the etheric sheath of Zarathustra himself.

An initiate is not only needed as inaugurator of a new civilization for the advancement of the human race, but he must have a suitable medium in which to work, a race fitted to receive the germ of this new civilization. To understand the folk-soul, the folk-germ in which what had been received by Moses from Zarathustra was to be planted, it would be well to consider more exactly the peculiar wisdom of Moses.

In a former incarnation, Moses as Zarathustra's pupil had received the wisdom concerning Time, and that secret which we referred to as the ‘opposition between the earlier and the later’ that arises in every age. If the wisdom of Moses was to enter human evolution it had to be established as a polarity to that other wisdom, already in existence, the wisdom of Hermes. And this took place.

Hermes had received direct Sun-wisdom from Zarathustra: that is to say, through his astral body he had gained knowledge of the Being dwelling mysteriously within the outer physical sheath of Light—the body of the sun. With Moses it was otherwise. Moses, whose wisdom was connected with the denser etheric body, received the Sun-wisdom less directly. His was not that wisdom which looks up to the Sun asking: “Does not everything come forth from the Being of the Sun?”; but he was the recipient of a contrasting knowledge, the wisdom that understood earthly things, things that had become dense and fixed, and appeared old, though not degenerate—Earth-wisdom in contrast to direct Sun-wisdom. Earth-wisdom was indirect Sun-wisdom. It derived its life from the Sun, yet was of the Earth. Moses declared the mystery of the Earth's origin, of the formation of the solid Earth after the withdrawal of the Sun, and told how man evolved on it. This is revealed to our inward, not our outward, vision; and now we see how and why the teaching of Hermes presents such a vivid contrast to that of Moses.

There are certain people to-day who consider all such problems on the principle that in the night all cows are grey. They can only see resemblances, and are enchanted when, for instance, some likeness between the Hermetic and Mosaic teachings is discovered; here they find a trinity, there a trinity, there a quaternary, and here a quaternary. This leads nowhere. It is like someone training a botanist by pointing out the likeness between a rose and a carnation, but omitting the differences. Through Spiritual Science we learn in what way both beings and forms of knowledge differ. The wisdom of Moses was quite different from that of Hermes, even though both proceeded from Zarathustra. As unity divides and manifests itself in various ways, so Zarathustra imparted to his two pupils revelations of a very different kind.

When we are steeped in the influences streaming from the wisdom of Hermes, we become aware of all that fills the world with Light, of the origin of the world, and how this was affected by the Light; but we do not learn from him how, in all development, the earlier influences the later; how this brings about strife between past and present, and the opposition of Light to Darkness. Earthly wisdom, the wisdom concerning the development of the Earth and of man after the separation from the Sun, is nowhere to be found in the teaching of Hermes. But it was the special mission of Moses to make the development of the Earth, after its separation from the Sun, comprehensible to man. Hermes brought us Sun-wisdom; Moses Earth-wisdom. Moses, with his Zarathustrian inheritance, taught of the dawn of earthly existence and of the earthly evolution of man. He starts from the things of earth, but these earthly things, though separated from the sun, still contained, if weakened, something of the nature of the sun. Therefore the Earth-wisdom of Moses had to encounter the Sun-wisdom of Hermes in concrete existence. These two streams of wisdom had to meet. This is shown most wonderfully in the initiation of Moses in Egypt, where he came in contact with the Hermes-wisdom. In the birth of Moses in Egypt, in the sojourning of his people there, in the conflict between them and the Egyptians, who were the people of Hermes, is seen the reflection in external life of the clashing of the Earth-wisdom with the Sun-wisdom. Both had originated with Zarathustra, and though they followed entirely different courses of evolution they had to work together and to coincide.

There is a certain kind of knowledge, one closely connected with the profound secrets of human and earthly existence, which in accordance with the methods of the Mysteries, is always expressed in a special way. This was referred to in Munich in the lectures on the Biblical Secrets of Creation. There it was shown how unusually difficult it is to speak in ordinary language of such mighty truths, truths comprising not only the deepest mysteries of man but of the universe. We are often hampered by words, for they have their precise meaning determined by long usage; and when endeavouring to express the mighty facts revealed inwardly to the soul, we often find ourselves in conflict with the feeble instrument of speech which is really in a certain respect so extraordinarily inadequate.

The greatest triviality of the newer culture in general that has been uttered in the course of the nineteenth century, is that every truth can be expressed simply, and that the mode of expression is the criterion of whether someone possesses this truth or not. Such a statement only shows that those who use it are not in possession of absolute truth, but only of those truths which, in the course of centuries, have been communicated in words, the form of which they only alter a little. For such people words suffice: they are quite unaware of the great struggle which must sometimes be carried on with words. This struggle becomes apparent whenever the soul strives to express what is grand and exalted. I spoke in Munich of how in the Rosicrucian Mystery Drama, The Portal of Initiation, at the end of the scene in the room provided for meditation, there was for me a very great difficulty with language. What the Hierophant had to say to the pupil could only be expressed in a most restricted way through the feeble instrument of speech.

Within the Holy Mysteries, however, the most profound secrets had to be expressed. There the inadequacy of speech to call up the images of reality was felt most strongly. Hence the age-long effort in the Mysteries to find other means to express the inner experiences of the soul. These feeble means of expression—words—have for centuries been reserved for external intercourse, but the pictures and images seen when men turned their gaze towards the heavenly spaces have proved far more suitable. The constellations, the rising of a star at a certain time, the occultation of a certain star by another at a definite time—such pictures were used to express experiences within the human soul.

Let us suppose that someone desired to say that a great event was to take place at a certain time, because at that particular moment a human soul would be sufficiently ripe to receive a great experience and to pass this on to his people; or that some nation, or a large part of mankind, having reached a certain high stage of ripeness, a certain individuality could appear among them, coming perhaps from a quite other direction. In such a case the climax of development of the individual would coincide with the highest point of development of the folk-soul. No words are sufficiently exalted to convey the full meaning of such an event. Therefore it was expressed in this wise: The coincidence of the climax of power of an individual, with the climax of power of a folk-soul, is as when the sun is in the constellation of Leo and thence sends us its light. The constellation of the Lion is here chosen to represent, in a pictorial way, something that had to be expressed as taking place with utmost power in human evolution. What could be seen thus outwardly in cosmic space was used as a means of expressing something taking place in humanity. Certain expressions found in human history have arisen in this way; they are taken from the movements of the heavenly bodies, and are the method used to denote spiritual facts.

When it is stated, for example, that the sun is in the sign of Leo, or that through some event in the heavens, such as an eclipse of the sun by a certain constellation, a fact in human evolution is symbolically expressed, it may very well happen that people reverse this and suppose, in a trivial way, that all the events relating to mankind's history were myths clothed in the motions of the stars; whereas the truth is that incidents in the life of humanity were expressed by means of images taken from the constellations.

This connection with the cosmos ought to fill us with certain feelings of reverence towards all we are told concerning the great events of human evolution, when we find these expressed in images taken from cosmic existence. But there is, nevertheless, an intimate connection between the existence of the whole cosmos and the life of man this is, that events taking place on earth are a reflection of cosmic events. Thus the meeting of the Sun-wisdom of Hermes with the Earth-wisdom of Moses in Egypt is, in a certain way, a reflection of cosmic activities. Picture to yourselves that certain forces streaming from the sun to the earth meet others streaming from the earth into cosmic space. It is not a matter of indifference where these two forces meet; but according as the meeting be near or far, the result of the outgoing and incoming forces is different.

Now the contact of the wisdom of Hermes with that of Moses was pictured in the Mysteries of ancient Egypt as representing something that, according also to Spiritual Science, had previously taken place in the cosmos. We know that early in evolution the sun separated from the earth, leaving the moon for a period within the earth. Later a part of this globe separate from the earth, and remained as the present moon. Thus the earth sent a portion of itself; as moon, into universal space, towards the sun. We may think of the remarkable occurrence of the meeting of the Earth-wisdom of Moses with the Sun-wisdom of Hermes as comparable with this streaming forth of the Earth-forces towards the sun. One might say: The wisdom of Moses, in its further course, after separating from the Sun-wisdom of Zarathustra, developed as the wisdom of the earth and of men in such a way that it drew again towards the sun, absorbing and filling itself with direct solar wisdom. The earth was destined to receive direct Sun-wisdom only to a certain extent, then to develop further alone and independently. The wisdom of Moses, therefore, only remained in Egypt until it had absorbed sufficient for its needs. Then came the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, in order that the Sun-wisdom taken up by the Earth-wisdom might be assimilated and brought to greater self-dependence.

The wisdom of Moses was two-fold. One part was developed under the sheltering wing of the Hermes-wisdom which it continually absorbed from every side, then, after the exodus from Egypt, it separated from this development, continued further within itself, and later passed through three stages. Towards what should this wisdom evolve? What is its task? Its ultimate task was to find its way back from the earth to the sun. It had become earthly wisdom. Moses was born with all he inherited from Zarathustra, as a wise man of earth. He was to find the way back, and he sought it in three stages, the first being that in which he absorbed the wisdom of Hermes. These stages are again best expressed in the images drawn from cosmic events. When what takes place upon the earth streams back in space from the earth towards the sun, it first encounters what is of the nature of Mercury (in ordinary astronomy the Mercury of astronomy is the Venus of Occult Science), then that of Venus, and ultimately that which is of the nature of the sun. The soul of Moses had to develop his Zarathustrian inheritance in inner experiences in such a way that he might return and find once more what appertained to the Sun. In order to do this he had to attain a certain degree of development. The wisdom Moses had implanted in western culture had to develop according to the way he gave it to his people. The wisdom he had gained from Hermes and which came to him like the direct rays of the sun, he had to develop anew, and reflect it back again in a changed form, after he had absorbed some part of it.

Now we are told that Hermes, who was later called ‘Mercury,’ brought to his people science and art, that is, external knowledge and art, in a form suitable to them. But it was in a different and almost opposite way that the wisdom of Moses attained to the Hermes-Mercury standpoint. Moses had himself to develop the wisdom of Hermes further. This is shown in the progress of the Hebrew people up to the age and reign of David. David, who is presented to us as the royal singer of Psalms and holy prophet, who as a man of God worked both as warrior and harpist, is the Hermes, or Mercury, of the Hebrew people. That stream of the Hebrew folk had now so far evolved that it had developed an independent form of Hermetic or Mercury wisdom. At the time of David the wisdom received from Hermes had reached the Mercury sphere, or Mercury stage, on its return journey. It then continued to the region of Venus. This came to pass for the Hebrews when the Moses-wisdom, or rather that version of it which had endured as his wisdom for hundreds of years, had to unite with an entirely different element, with a stream issuing from another direction.

Just as that which streams back in space from the earth towards the sun encounters Venus, so the wisdom of Moses encountered an Asiatic wisdom that came from another direction during the Babylonian Captivity. The Moses-wisdom came in touch with the weakened form of another wisdom in the Mysteries of Babylon and Chaldea. Like a wanderer who, having acquired knowledge of the earth, leaves it for the Mercury sphere, and thence passes on to Venus desirous of experiencing the sunlight as it is felt there, so the Moses-wisdom, having received the direct Sun-wisdom from the holy teachings of Zarathustra, passed over in a weakened form to the mystery schools of Chaldea and Babylon. The wisdom of Moses experienced this weakening during the Babylonian captivity, where it united with all that had penetrated into the lands of the Tigris and Euphrates. Here something else happened.

In the sanctuaries which the wise men among the Hebrews were obliged to frequent during their captivity, the wisdom of Moses was directly impregnated with the qualities of the Sun-wisdom. For at this time Zarathustra was himself incarnated and taught in the mystery schools of the Tigris and Euphrates, and was known to the learned among the Hebrews. He who had relinquished part of his wisdom so that he might receive it back again, was himself teaching at this time. He had frequently reincarnated, and in this incarnation in which he was known as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he taught the captive Jews in Babylon.

Thus in the course of its further progress, the wisdom of Moses came in touch with what Zarathustra had himself become after he had withdrawn from the more distant Mystery Sanctuaries and had entered those of Asia Minor. Here he became the teacher of the initiate Chaldean disciples, as well as teacher of the Hebrews. They now received a fructification of their Mosaic wisdom by a stream they were now fitter to encounter, because what had once been given to their ancestor Moses by Zarathustra came to them now directly from himself, in his incarnation as Zarathos or Nazarathos. This was the destiny through which Mosaic wisdom passed. Originally it sprang from Zarathustra, but was then transplanted into an alien land. It was as if a Sun-being with bandaged eyes had been brought down to earth, and now, on its backward journey, had to seek all it had lost. Such a wanderer was Moses, the pupil of Zarathustra. His destiny had placed him within Egyptian civilization, so that all the wisdom given him at one time by Zarathustra might be quickened and illuminated in his inner being. He was cut off, as it were, from the sun on the fields of earth, where unaware of the source of his illumination he moved unconsciously towards what once was sun. In Egypt he was attracted towards the wisdom of Hermes, which brought to him direct Zarathustra-wisdom, not an indirect reflection like his own. After absorbing sufficiently of this, the wisdom of Moses continued its development in a more direct way. Having founded an Hermetic wisdom at the time of David, and a science and art of its own, it turned again towards the sun from which it had originally come forth, though in a way that had at first to appear veiled.

In the ancient Babylonian schools of learning where, among others, Zarathustra taught Pythagoras, his teaching was restricted by the type of physical body of the period. If Zarathustra was to give full expression to his Sun-nature through a form suited to those times, as he was able to do in that earlier incarnation when he had passed it on to Moses and Hermes, he would require a bodily instrument fitted to the new age. Restricted by a body such as could be produced in ancient Babylonia, he was only able to convey such wisdom as he passed on to Pythagoras, to the learned Hebrews and wise men of Chaldea and Babylon, who in the sixth century before Christ, were ready and able to hear it. In respect of this teaching it was exactly as if the sunlight were first taken up by Venus and prevented from shining directly on the earth; as if his teaching could not shine with its original splendour but only in a weakened form. Before the Sun-wisdom of Zarathustra could shine forth once more in its pristine power, a body suited to him must first be provided, and in a very special way. This will now be described.

In the first lecture, we told of the three folk-souls of Asia, the Indian in the South, the Iranian, and the Turanian to the North, and we described the connection of these with the Atlantean migrations into Asia. Where the northern stream which came from Atlantis met the southern stream which passed through Africa, an extraordinary mixture of races occurred. From this admixture a race developed from which later the Hebrew people sprang.

Something unusual occurred in the development of these ancestors of the Hebrews. The lower astral-etheric clairvoyance which had become so decadent among certain races because it was the last phase of external perception, had in those people who developed into the Hebrew race, turned inwards and manifested as an organizing force. That which we have described as being externally decadent, as having remained behind in certain races as a last phase of declining clairvoyance, and as being permeated somewhat by the Ahrimanic element, had progressed among the Hebrews in the right direction by becoming an actively organizing force within the human body. Through this, bodies became more perfect. What among the Turanians was decadent worked constructively and progressively in the Hebrews. Within the physical nature of the Hebrews, as propagated from generation to generation in the close bond of blood relationship, all those forces were active which had accomplished their mission in developing external sight. These were no longer required to provide external sight, so could enter on another sphere of action, thus passing into their right element. That which had given to the Atlantean the power to gaze spiritually into space and into spiritual realms, that had run wild in the Turanians, appearing as a last relic of clairvoyance—all this force worked inwardly in the little Hebrew nation. What in the Atlantean had been spiritual and divine, worked inwardly in the Hebrew race to form certain organs. It worked constructively in the body and could therefore flash forth in the blood of this people as and inward divine consciousness. With the Hebrew people it was if all the Atlantean had seen when directing his clairvoyant vision into space was turned inwards, as if it constructed inwardly an organ of consciousness which was the Jahve-consciousness—the consciousness of God within him. This people felt the God Who filled all space to be united with their blood, felt they were filled, impregnated with Him, and that He lived in the pulsation of their blood.

As in the last lecture we contrasted the Iranians and the Turanians we have now considered the Turanians and the Hebrews, and have seen that what in its further progress and in its essence had become decadent in the Turanians, pulsated later in the blood of the Hebrew people. All that the Atlantean had seen, lived on in the Hebrew as an inward feeling, and could be comprised in a single word: Jahve or Jehovah. The consciousness of God lived throughout the generations of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob concentrated as into a single point, invisible but inwardly felt. The God Who had revealed Himself to the Atlantean clairvoyance behind all living things was now the God dwelling in the blood of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and led the generations of their race from destiny to destiny. The outward had thus become inward it was experienced, no longer seen; it was no longer described by different names, but by one single name ‘I am the I am!’ It had taken on an entirely different form. Whereas for the Atlantean this was found where he was not—in the external world—it was now found by man in the centre of his own being; in his ego; he was conscious of it in the blood that coursed through the generations. The mighty God of the Universe had now become the God of the Hebrews; the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and flowed through the generations as the blood of the race.

It was in this way that the race was founded whose special inner mission for humanity we shall consider in the next lecture. We have thus far only been able to indicate the very earliest stage of the composition of the blood of this people, in which was concentrated everything that in the age of ancient Atlantis, humanity had allowed to be impressed upon it from without. We shall see later what mysteries were fulfilled in that which had here its beginning, and shall learn to recognize the peculiar nature of that people from which Zarathustra could take his body to become the being we call Jesus of Nazareth.

• 1. In a footnote to this lecture the reader is recommended to study these early lectures in conjunction with the author's lectures on St. Luke, in order to understand the events in the life of Christ Jesus.

Interchanging activity of Thoth-Hermes and Moses, as reflection of a cosmic process. The secret of the Hebrew people. Human thought the reflection of divine vision. The power of ancient clairvoyance passes into the inner organization of man. The law of numbers in respect of heredity in the sequence of generations

Before passing on to our main theme, I should like to make a slight addition to something mentioned yesterday. This was, that when human evolution, especially the most important events in our existence, are described, this can best be done in a language drawn from cosmic events. I showed how impossible it was to clothe these mighty mysteries in ordinary words, or to give any clear idea of the wonderful interchanging activities of Hermes or Thoth and Moses, the two great pupils of Zarathustra. We represent them best when we treat them as a repetition of cosmic events, accepting them altogether in the sense of Occult Science

Let us glance back in thought to the separation of the earth from its sun, after which each pursued its further life in the cosmos with an independent centre. In a primeval past the whole substance of earth and sun may be pictured as forming one whole, one great cosmic body, which later divided into sun and earth. Parallel to this, other cosmic events took place, namely, the separation of the other planets of our solar system. These need not be considered here; for our present purpose it is sufficient to consider such a separation as the Sun forming the one centre, and the Earth the other.

In those remote times, it must be remembered, the earth still contained the substance of the present moon, so that really the sun and the earth-moon confronted one another. All the spiritual and physical forces that had existed as one heavenly body were now divided—the coarser elements, the denser, grosser activities, remaining with the earth, the finer, more spiritually-etheric ones, going out with the sun. It must be realized that for long ages the earth and sun continued each to develop its separate life, and that what streamed from the sun towards the earth was quite different from what comes from it to-day. There was at first a kind of earthly existence and earthly life of an inward nature, secluded, contracted, and receiving little from the life of the sun—little of that which spiritually (though expressed physically) streams from the sun to the earth to-day. The earth, in this first period of the separation between sun and earth, experienced a drying-up, hardening, mummifying process. If this had continued, if the earth had retained the moon within it, the human life of to-day would never have evolved. As long as the earth contained the moon within it, the life of the sun could not fully manifest its activities. This it could only do later when the earth had parted with the moon and its substance, and the spiritual moon-beings. But something else was bound up with the separation of moon and earth.

We must clearly realize that life on the earth has evolved very slowly and gradually. The stages of this evolution are described in Occult Science: first, the existence of ancient Saturn, then that of the ancient Sun, followed by that of the ancient Moon, and lastly that of the Earth. What has just been described as the separation of the sun from the earth or the earlier union of sun and earth was preceded by all these other evolutionary states which were of a quite different kind. When the earth first came into existence in its present form, it still had united with it the substances of all the planets of our solar system, these only differentiated from the earth later, which differentiation was the result of forces active during the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods of existence.

Now we know that during the ancient Saturn existence, matter or substance, as it is to-day, did not exist; neither solid bodies, fluid, nor watery bodies, misty, nor even gaseous nor atmospheric bodies, existed on Saturn. In its whole composition Saturn consisted merely of warmth it was nothing but differentiated warmth. Saturn had a body of heat, and everything that developed upon it was within this element of warmth. It is hardly necessary to repeat that such a statement is not made without recognition of the attitude of modern physics, which regards the existence of a body consisting solely of heat as an impossibility. Heat to modern physics is a condition, not a substance but our concern here is not with modern physics, but with truth.

Evolution continued from the heat body of the Saturn-evolution, and passed on to the next state, that of the ancient Sun. As described in my book, Occult Science, the heat body now in part condensed to the gaseous vapoury condition found on ancient Sun, and a part of it became more rarefied, evolving upwards towards light, where there was not only a process of condensation but one of rarefication. Passing on from the condition of ancient Saturn to that of the ancient Sun, we find a globe containing air, heat, and light. At the next stage, that of the ancient Moon, a further densification took place, and a further rarefication, a densification, on one hand, to water, and a rarefication, on the other, to sound-ether or chemical-ether.

This sound-ether is not what we are aware of in physical sound, which is but its reflection. Sound-ether is known to clairvoyant perception as the harmony of the spheres, the etheric tone which lives within and permeates all space. It is something much more spiritual, more etheric, than ordinary sound.

From the condition of ancient Moon, evolution passed on to that of the earth. Here condensation to solid matter took place for the first time, and also a corresponding rise to life-ether. So on the earth there was now warmth, gaseous or atmospheric bodies, watery or fluid bodies, and solid bodies; and on the other hand light-ether, sound-ether, and life-ether. All this has come to pass in the evolution of the earth. While on Saturn there was but one condition—the middle one, that of warmth—on the earth there are seven elemental conditions.

We must picture the earth as living and weaving within these seven conditions of elemental life when at the beginning of its present existence it emerged from cosmic night, wherein it was still one with the sun and the other planets. With its separation from the sun, something very remarkable took place.

Among the influences and conditions streaming to-day from the sun to the earth, and affecting external life, we certainly find heat and light, but among these influences which belong to the world of sense-perception, the externalization and manifestation of sound-ether and life-ether do not belong. This is also the reason why the activities of sound-ether are only manifested in the chemical combinations of material existence. What we call the forces of life-ether streaming down as they do from the sun, cannot be perceived directly by sense perception, that is, by the means employed by man to distinguish between light and darkness. Life is perceived by him in its results, in living beings; he cannot see the downward streaming life-ether directly. Hence science is forced to state that life, as such, remains a riddle.

So we find that the two highest etheric manifestations, life-ether and sound-ether, though proceeding directly from the finest substances of the sun, are not directly perceptible on earth. We have here something which, though proceeding from the sun, is hidden from ordinary perception. Yet, even under present conditions, there is something corresponding to what lives in sound and life-ether; something in man's inner being that is perceptible. Though the direct effects of these life-ethers and sphere harmonies are not seen, what is at work on the whole constitution of man is perceptible.

This can be explained most simply by referring to man's evolution on earth. It is known to Spiritual Science that in ancient times, down to the Atlantean age, man was gifted with direct clairvoyance, and beheld not merely the world of the senses, but also the whole spiritual background of physical existence. This was possible because for the man of those times there was an intermediate condition between our present-day waking consciousness and our sleeping consciousness. When awake, man perceives the physical world of the senses when asleep, nothing is perceptible—at least to the majority. Man then merely lives. But the spiritual investigator makes strange discoveries about the life of man during sleep, discoveries especially strange to those who only regard life externally. During sleep the astral body and ego of man are outside his physical and etheric bodies, but these should not be pictured as resembling a nebulous cloud floating near the physical body. That which is compared to a ‘cloud’ and is apparent to lower astral clairvoyance, and is sometimes called the ‘astral body,’ is merely the coarsest, first beginnings of what is revealed of a human being during sleep. If this cloud is accepted as the whole of what can be seen, then it is certainly viewed from the lowest form of astral clairvoyance. The reality of man's being during sleep extends to far distances. The fact is that at the moment of falling asleep, the inner forces in the astral body and ego begin to expand over the whole solar system; they become part of the solar system. From the whole of this solar system the man draws into his astral body and ego during sleep, forces for the strengthening of his life and on awakening, when he again passes within the confines of his own physical body, he bears with him what he has absorbed during the night from the solar system.

It was because of this that mediaeval occultists named this spiritual body of man, the astral body; for it is associated with the world of the stars whence it draws its forces. So we can say that during the night man is actually extended over the whole solar system.

What is it that permeates our astral body while we sleep? It is the music of the spheres. The sphere-harmonies live and move within the human astral body when at night man is outside his physical and etheric sheaths; harmony which otherwise can only be found in the sound-ether. As a metal disc, on which sand has been scattered, responds to the vibrations in the air when it is struck by a violin bow, disclosing in the sand what are known as the Chiadnic sound-forms, so man trembles and pulsates nightly in response to the sphere-harmonies, which bring form and order into what, through his sense-perceptions, he has brought into disorder during the day. And that which lives in the life-ether is also active in man during sleep, but he is quite unaware of this inner life of his sheaths when separated from his physical and etheric bodies. Normally he is only conscious when he plunges down again into his two lower sheaths, and can use the external organs of his etheric body for thought, and those of his physical body for sense-perception.

But in ancient times there were intermediate conditions between waking and sleeping which can only be induced to-day by abnormal means; and these ought never to be employed in ordinary life, for they are fraught with danger. In Atlantis these intermediate conditions of perception were evolved normally. Through them man was able to place himself within that which lived and moved in the harmony of the spheres and the life-ether. In other words, the man of ancient times, through his clairvoyance, could perceive the harmony of the spheres streaming to him from the sun, and life as it pulsates through space, even though the sphere-harmonies were only manifest in the earthly effects and life was only perceptible in living beings. The possibility of this experience gradually diminished. With the closing of the door on the old clairvoyance, these revelations disappeared, but something else appeared in their place—the capacity for inner knowledge and the inner powers of understanding. All that in waking life is called contemplation and the thought connected with sense-perception—the whole of the individual inner life—began to evolve with the disappearance of clairvoyance. The inner life of to-day, our feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and ideas, which are fundamentally the origin of all that is creative in our civilization, were not yet possessed in the earliest Atlantean times. Man lived in the intermediate states between sleeping and waking, poured out into a spiritual world, and the sense-world he beheld as in a mist; he lived entirely without the power of human understanding, or any inner reflected images of external life.

With the gradual disappearance of the old clairvoyance, external life came more and more into prominence. Slowly something developed in man's nature that was a feeble reflection of the harmony of the spheres and the activities of the life-ether. In the same measure as man became inwardly aware of feelings and perceptions reflecting the outer world and forming his inner life as it is to-day, the music of the spheres sounded ever more faintly to him. As his realization of himself, of his ego-hood became clearer, his perception of the divine life-ether filling all space became fainter. Present conditions had to be paid for by the loss of a certain part of what had been man's outer life. As earthly being he felt life enclosed within himself, he ceased to feel it streaming to him from the sun; and in his inner life there remains to-day but a faint reflection of that mighty cosmic life, of sphere-harmony and life-ether.

What gradually evolved as human understanding was like a recapitulation of the earth's evolution. When separated from the sun, the earth would have become enclosed within itself and hard, had it retained all the substances left within it. The influences of the sun could not penetrate at first into the development of the earth they failed to do so until the moon had separated from it. In ‘Moon’ we must recognize those rejected substances that made it impossible for the earth to receive the direct influences of the sun. By ejecting the moon, the earth really opened her whole nature and being for the first time to the influences of the sun, from which she had been parted. She sent part of her being back towards the sun, in the opposite direction to that from which she had herself gone forth from it, and this part—the moon—reflects back the sun-nature to the earth as outwardly it reflects its light.

The separation of the moon from the earth must be regarded as an event of the greatest importance; it was a voluntary opening of the earth to the influences of the sun. This cosmic event had now to be enacted again in the life of humanity. A long time after the earth had thus opened herself to the reception of the sun-forces, the moment arrived when man himself had to be cut off from these forces.

By means of their clairvoyance, the direct solar influences could still be perceived by the Atlanteans; but just as at a certain stage in its evolution the earth began to harden, so a time came when man withdrew within himself and began to develop an inner life of his own. Like the earth, he became unable to open himself to the direct influences of the sun. The process of developing an inner life by ceasing to be susceptible to solar influences, and only of developing in himself what was a faint reflection of the activities of the life-ether and sound-ether, continued for long into post-Atlantean times. Direct perception of the solar forces, which was characteristic of the early Atlanteans was eventually lost. As the effects of these forces could no longer penetrate to the consciousness of mankind, his inward life continued blossoming more and more. Then came the time when it was only in the Mysteries that man's spiritual powers could be developed. There, by means of Yoga, a pupil of the Mysteries could be withdrawn from earthly conditions and made directly aware of the solar influences. Therefore, during the second half of the Atlantean period what were rightly called ‘Oracles’ appeared. They were places where a class of people, who no longer perceived the activities of the higher ethers normally, were received as pupils and trained, in sacred wisdom. Here, through training, they learnt to suppress mere sense-perceptions and to become conscious of the revelations of the sound-ether and life-ether. The power to do this was preserved in the true centres of occult science. Indeed, the possibility of this endured so powerfully that even external science, without understanding it, still retains a tradition from the school of Pythagoras that one can hear the harmony of the spheres. Science, ignorant however of what the true ‘Harmony of the Spheres’ was, has changed it into a mere abstract idea. The pupils of Pythagoras understood as the power to perceive the harmony of the spheres, the actual reopening of a man's being to the tone-ether and the divine life-ether.

Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, was the first who taught in the most sublime way that behind the activities of the sun streaming to the earth as light and warmth, there was something else, something which as the activity of sound-ether and life-ether is feebly reflected in the inner life of man. Were we to translate his teaching into modern words, it might read: ‘When you look up to the sun you are aware of its beneficial warmth and light flowing down to earth; but when you have evolved higher organs, when you have developed spiritual perception, you will behold the Being of the sun Who lives behind the physical sun. You will then perceive the activities of sound, and within these the meaning of life!’ This, the first thing of a spiritual nature to be perceived behind the physical activity of the sun, was described by Zarathustra to his pupils as Ormuzd, or Ahura Mazdao, the mighty aura of the sun.

Therefore Ahura Mazdao is sometimes translated as ‘The Great Wisdom,’ to distinguish it from the little wisdom evolved by men to-day. Man perceives ‘The Great Wisdom’ when he perceives the spiritual being of the sun, the great sun aura.

‘The sun-orb sings, in emulation,
‘Mid brother-spheres, his ancient round:
His path predestined through Creation,
He ends with step of thunder-sound.’

FAUST—Prologue in Heaven.

In these words a poet, gazing back into the ancient days of human evolution, refers to what is a fact to the spiritual investigator. But the ‘resounding’ of the sun is to some people not a fact but a pleasing fancy, a poetic licence. They do not realize what a poet, in the sense in which Goethe was a poet, really is. He describes reality when he says, ‘The sun-orb sings his ancient round,’ that is, as ancient humanity heard it, and as it still sounds to-day for those who are initiates. Truths such as these were given by Zarathustra to his pupils, and above all to his two most intimate disciples, those who later incarnated as Hermes and Moses. But to each he gave a separate and different instruction concerning the sun aura. Hermes was instructed in a way that led him to remain within the influence that emanated directly from the sun: Moses was inspired so that he retained the secret of the sun-wisdom as in a memory.

If, in accordance with occult science, we picture the earth after her separation from the sun and the moon, and see her opening her being to greet the sun, we have in Venus and Mercury that which stands in between the sun and the earth. If we now divide the whole space between the sun and the earth into three parts, we might say: The earth parted from the sun; she then thrust out from her the moon towards the sun, then Venus and Mercury separated from the sun and came towards the earth. We have to see therefore in Venus and Mercury, something which approaches the earth from the sun, and in the moon, something that approaches the sun from the earth.

The conditions of human evolution are thus seen to resemble the conditions of cosmic relationships; they reflect them as in a mirror. If we regard the teaching of Zarathustra as ‘sun-wisdom,’ which he imparted, on one side to Hermes, and on the other to Moses, then because Hermes had received the astral sheath of Zarathustra, the wisdom which dwelt in him may be likened to the streaming out of the sun-wisdom; while the wisdom that lived in Moses was, as it were, cut off, like a separate planet of wisdom, and had to go through a further development before it could receive those outpourings coming directly from the sun.

Just as with the moon's departure the forces of the earth opened to receive those coming from the sun, so the wisdom of Moses opened to receive the direct sun-wisdom as it streamed from Zarathustra. These two, the earth-wisdom of Moses, and the sun-wisdom of Zarathustra as given to Hermes, met in Egypt; where the teaching of Moses came into contact with that of Hermes. The wisdom developed by Moses, which he acquired through being separated from Zarathustra, might be compared with the throwing-off of the moon-substance by the earth. The wisdom he imparted to his people can also be called the wisdom of Jahve or Jehovah, for when rightly understood this name is like a resumé of the whole Moses-wisdom. Accepted in this sense you can understand why, according to ancient tradition, Jehovah is called the Moon Deity. This fact is to be found in many records, but is only comprehensible when we begin to realize these far-reaching connections.

As the earth thrust what it contained within it as moon, towards the sun, so the earth-wisdom of Moses had to go out to meet that of Hermes, who possessed in his astral sheath the direct wisdom of Zarathustra, and afterwards had to carry on its own evolution.

It has already been explained how after the meeting with Hermes, Mosaic wisdom continued to develop up to the time of David, and how a revised form of Hermetic or Mercury-wisdom appeared in the kingly warrior and divine singer of the Hebrew people. And we have seen how once more the content of the teaching of Moses came in touch with the sun-element during the Babylonian captivity when the reincarnated Zarathustra or Nazarathos taught the initiates among the Hebrews.

So in the course of the development of the wisdom of Moses we have to see a repetition of cosmic events; the separation of the earth from the sun and all its subsequent development. Such correspondences were regarded with deep veneration and awe by the wise men of the Hebrew race, and by all, who had understanding. They felt something like a direct revelation streaming towards them from cosmic spaces and cosmic life. To them, a personality such as Moses seemed like a messenger from the cosmic powers themselves. They felt him to be this, and as such he must be regarded by us if we would rightly understand these ancient times, otherwise it all remains an empty abstraction.

It was supremely important that the wisdom of Zarathustra, which had developed through Hermes and Moses, should evolve further and afterwards appear at a higher stage and in another form. In order that this might come to pass, Zarathustra, the individuality who had already offered up his astral and etheric bodies, had himself to appear again in a physical body, so that this might also be sacrificed. What he thus experienced was an ascent, a beautiful ascending progress. First, in very ancient times, Zarathustra lived in his own being and gave the impulse to post-Atlantean civilization in ancient Persia and Iran; he then sacrificed his astral body so that through Hermes the next civilization might be established, and to Moses he bequeathed his etheric body. These two sheaths he had already sacrificed. An opportunity for the sacrifice of his physical body had yet to come, for the great mystery of human evolution demanded that one individual should sacrifice his three bodies. The sacrifice of the physical body required special preparation, and to this end the physical body of Zarathustra had to be specially prepared.

I showed in the last lecture how, through the peculiar life of the Hebrew people, this special physical body had been in preparation for many generations. This was then offered up by Zarathustra as his third great sacrifice. In order that this could happen it was necessary that all the force formerly employed by the Hebrew people for direct spiritual perception, the forces that had fallen into decadence among the Turanian peoples, should be turned inwards and become inwardly constructive. This is the secret of the Hebrew people. While among the Turanians the ancient forces, lingering as an heirloom, served to prepare external organs of clairvoyance, in the Hebrews they turned inwards and organized their inner physical nature, so that this people was chosen to perceive and feel inwardly what in Atlantean times had been seen behind the different objects of the sense-world. Jehovah, as he was consciously named by the Hebrews, focussed to a single point, was the ‘Great Spirit’ who was seen by an earlier clairvoyance, behind all things and all beings. I also showed how the progenitor of the Hebrew people—as Father of the race—had been endowed with this inner organization in a very special way.

I have often remarked, and may well repeat it again, that myths and legends, telling in a pictorial way of long-ago events, come nearer the truth than many results of modern anthropological investigations which piece together tales of the origin of the world drawn from recent excavations and fragmentary remains. For the most part ancient legends are corroborated by the facts of Spiritual Science. I say, ‘for the most part,’ for I have not investigated them all, though the content of all really old legends is probably true. Research into the origin of the Hebrew people leads us, not to the conjectures of modern anthropological research, but to an original progenitor, to the Father of the Hebrew race mentioned in the Bible. Abram, or Abraham, is a real figure, and what the Talmud legends relate of him is true. We are told in these legends that the father of Abraham was a captain in the service of that legendary but real person, described in the Bible as Nimrod. To Nimrod it was foretold, by those who could read the signs of the times in dreams, that the son of his captain would dethrone many kings and rulers. Nimrod was afraid when he heard this, and ordered that his captain's son should be killed. After presenting another man's child, not his own, to Nimrod, the father of Abraham fled; his own child was reared in a cave. Occult investigation confirms this legend; it contains the truth. It indicates that Abraham was actually the first to turn inward the powers formerly used in external clairvoyance and transform them into organizing forces which led to an inward consciousness of God. This reversal of the whole sum of forces is indicated in the legend which tells that during the three years the child dwelt in the cave it sucked milk, by the grace of God, from the fingers of its own right hand. This self.. nourishment, this turning inwards of the forces formerly used in ancient clairvoyance, and the employment of them for organizing man inwardly, is explained to us wonderfully in the story of Abraham, the ancestor of the Hebrew people. Such legends, when experienced profoundly, have a powerful effect, making us realize that the ancient teachers of mankind could communicate true wisdom in no other way than by images. Such images were able to give rise, if not to a consciousness, yet to a feeling, for these mighty events, and this was sufficient for those ancient times.

Abraham was thus the first to develop the inward reflection of divine wisdom, of divine perception in a truly human way, as human thoughts concerning the Godhead. Abram, or Abraham as he was called later, had actually a different physical organization from other men living at that time. This is always insisted upon by occult investigation. The men around him were neither capable of nor organized for forming thoughts inwardly, by means of a special instrument. They could form thoughts when free of the body, through the forces of their developed etheric bodies, but they had no instrument for the formation of thoughts within the physical body. Abraham was the first to develop such an instrument; hence he is not wrongly called the inventor of arithmetic—though this statement must naturally be taken cum grano salis—as arithmetic is pre-eminently the science of physical thought. Arithmetic, on account of its inner certainty, approaches closely to clairvoyant knowledge; but it is dependent upon a physical organ.

Thus we have here a deep inward connection between the external forces, employed until then for the purpose of clairvoyance, and those now employed by an inner organ, for thought. This is what is referred to when Abraham is described as the inventor of arithmetic. He must be regarded as the man in whom the physical organ of thought was first implanted, that organ by which man was able to raise himself through his physical thinking to the contemplation of divinity. Before this time men could only learn of God and of divine existence through clairvoyance. In order that they might rise in thought to the divine, a physical instrument was necessary, and this organ was implanted for the first time in Abraham. The fact that thoughts had now to be apprehended through a physical organ, meant that the whole relationship of these thoughts concerning divinity to the objective world, and to the subjective nature of man, was completely changed.

Formerly, thoughts concerning God were conceived in the divine wisdom of the Mystery Schools, and from there were passed on to others able to receive them, that is, to those who had been freed from the organs of the physical body and rendered capable of etheric perception. There is but one way of passing on a physical instrument from one to another: through physical descent. In order that a physical organ of such importance as that possessed by Abraham could be preserved, it had to be propagated through physical inheritance from one generation to another. It can be easily realized why the handing down of this physical attribute through the blood of the race mattered so much to the Hebrew people. The organ, that in the first place had been shaped and crystallized in Abraham for the comprehension of divinity, had to be established. As it was handed down from generation to generation, it entered ever more deeply into human nature, and it grasped this the more deeply, the more it was inherited. For a physical organ can only be perfected when through inheritance it is passed on from one generation to another.

If he whom we have learnt to know as Zarathustra was to have the most perfect body possible (and this means a body with a physical organ capable of becoming an instrument for the conceiving of thoughts of God), the physical instrument implanted in Abraham had to be brought to the highest degree of perfection. It had to be so fully established and developed inwardly through inheritance that a fitting instrument could be evolved for Zarathustra. The development of such a perfect physical body through inheritance, inevitably meant the perfection not only of one but of the other sheaths as well, the etheric and the astral sheaths. They too had to be perfected through inheritance.

Now there is a certain fixed law in evolution which has often been described. From birth to his seventh year is a very special time in the development of man—in it he develops his physical body; from the seventh to the fourteenth–fifteenth, his etheric; and from then to the twenty-first—twenty-second year, his astral body. The evolution of the individual man is expressed in a law that is governed by the number seven. A similar law exists for the evolution of humanity as a whole, and affects the outer sheaths of men as they pass from one generation to another. The more profound working of this law will be considered later.

Whereas the individual man undergoes a stage of evolution every seven years and as the physical body becomes more perfect during the first seven years, so the whole structure of the physical body improves throughout the generations until the seventh generation, when it attains a certain state of perfection. But qualities are not transmitted directly from a man to his next descendant inheritance does not work in this way, but from father to grandson. Important qualities do not pass directly from father to son, or mother to daughter, but to the second generation, then to the fourth, and so on. Inheritance is of necessity connected with the number seven, but as every other generation is missed, it is really the number fourteen that has to be considered. It was only after fourteen generations that the physical qualities implanted in Abraham could reach perfection.

If the etheric and astral bodies were to be associated with this advance, their evolution had also to continue through seven, or rather, fourteen generations, in the same way as the etheric and astral bodies of the single individual evolves from the seventh to the fourteenth year, and from the fourteenth to the twenty-first. This means, therefore, that the physical organization which had been implanted in Abraham, the father of the race, had to pass through three times seven (or rather three times fourteen) generations, for not until then could it completely lay hold of the physical, etheric and astral bodies. After forty-two generations it was possible for a man to have developed perfectly in his physical, etheric and astral bodies, the aptitude first received by Abraham. Only such a body as this would be suitable for Zarathustra. This is the fact given out by the writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew. In his table of descent, he points expressly to this by enumerating fourteen generations from Abaham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian captivity, and fourteen from the captivity to Christ. During this long period the mission of the Hebrews, which began with Abraham, reached full development; by then it had been indelibly impressed on the different principles of the people of the race, so that from them a body meet for Zarathustra could be found in an age when something entirely new was to be revealed to men.

From such profound depths as these the Gospel of Matthew has its beginning—depths that can only be realized when they are understood. We must recognize that in the story of these three times fourteen generations we are shown that in the body inherited from Joseph by Jesus of Nazareth there dwelt the essence of what in its first beginnings existed in Abraham; that this essence then spread from him through the whole Hebrew people, and was then concentrated in a single instrument—in a single sheath. This was the sheath for Zarathustra, in which the Christ could incarnate.

The ancient Hebrew consciousness of God. The secret of the development of a people, as image of cosmic development. Principal and subsidiary currents in the preparation for the Christ-event

WE have shown that the Hebrew people had received from Abraham a physical organ, enabling them to acquire, through sense knowledge, not merely an inkling, but, as far as was possible, a real knowledge of divine spiritual things. Knowledge of the divinely spiritual there is and has been at all times and in all places. But this, what might be called eternal knowledge of the divine, was reached through initiation into the Mysteries, or at least on the path to initiation.

A distinction must be made between that knowledge of the spiritual worlds acquired by special training or initiation, and that which is normal for any age, and arises as its special mission for human evolution.

In this way the astral clairvoyance prevalent throughout the Atlantean period was normal for that age, but for the age in which the Hebrews flourished an external, exoteric knowledge of the spiritual world was normal, and was gained with the aid of a special physical organ. As already indicated, the people of Abraham arrived at this knowledge in such a way that their innermost being seemed to be dissolved within divine existence. Inner knowledge, or the comprehension of divinity in man's innermost being, became possible through this special physical organ.

But this comprehension of the divine did not make it immediately possible for men to say: ‘I descend into my own inner being, I strive to comprehend as deeply as I can my own inner nature; there I find the drop of divine spiritual existence giving me an understanding of what permeates the external world.’ This first became spiritually possible through the entrance of Christ into human evolution. The possibility of experiencing the divine was first given to the Hebrew people through their Folk-spirit, in which each felt himself not as a single individual but as a member of the whole people; he then felt he belonged through his blood to the whole line of generations, he felt the Divine or Jehovah-consciousness lived in his Folk-consciousness.

In the terms of Occult Science it would be inaccurate to describe the God Jehovah by saying, ‘He is the God of Abraham;’ but we must say, ‘He is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and ofJacob—the Being Who passes from generation to generation, and Who reveals Himself through individual men in the consciousness of the race.’ The Christian perception shows a great advance over this. What the ancient Hebrew perception attained only through meditating on the Folk-spirit, by sinking within the Spirit flowing through the generations, Chistian recognizes in each single individual. I Abraham might have said; ‘In that I am chosen to be the founder of a people whose descendants will spread over the earth, a God will live in the blood flowing through the generations Whom we hold to be the most supreme, and Who reveals Himself to us in the consciousness of our people.’ This was the consciousness normal for that time.

This special form of knowledge was different from the higher knowledge of the Spirit that had been preserved in the Mysteries throughout all ages. In Atlantis, astral-etheric clairvoyance could perceive the divine-spiritual background of existence. By developing their inner life men could there attain knowledge through the Mysteries or Oracles. Even during the period when the Hebrew type of consciousness was normal, men who trained in certain sanctuaries could rise to the perception of the divine. But this was done when outside the body, not within it, as was the way of the people of Abraham. A man could rise to the perception of the eternal divine Spirit by enhancing the eternal in himself. Thus it is easily realized that one thing was necessary to Abraham. He had learnt, in a way peculiar to himself, and by means of a physical organ, to know the divinely spiritual, and in this way he had learnt to recognize the God Who guides the universe. If he were to enter with vivid comprehension into the whole course of evolution, it was of the greatest importance that he should recognize in the God Who revealed Himself in the Folk-consciousness of the people, the same God, Who had been recognized in the Mysteries of all ages as the Creative Deity. Abraham had to be quite certain of the identity of his God with the God of the Mysteries. Certainty of this was brought home to him through a very special revelation.

To understand this certainty one fact of human evolution must be kept in mind. In my book, Occult Science, reference is made to the ancient Atlantean Initiates, the ‘Priests of the Oracles’—what they were called is of little consequence—and I said there that the Sun-Initiate was the head of all the Atlantean Oracles, and must be distinguished from the initiates of the lesser Oracles, those of Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, etc. He was the great leader of those people who carried culture from the West to the East, from Atlantis to Central Asia, and founded post-Atlantean civilizations. This great Initiate, for such he was, withdrew into the secret sanctuaries of Central Asia. It was he who made it possible for those mighty sages, the Holy Rishis, to become the teachers of their race and it was this great and mysterious Initiate who imparted initiation to Zarathustra. The initiation given to Zarathustra differed, however, from that imparted to the Rishis, for their missions were different. The initiation given to the Rishis enabled them, after the further development of their inner being, to declare as from themselves, the mighty secrets of existence. They became the great guides and leaders of the pre-Vedic Indian culture. Though developed by artificial means, the initiation of the Rishis was yet to them something which strongly resembled the old Atlantean clairvoyance. Each of the seven Rishis received his training separately, each had his own appointed region, and each his separate mission, just as each Oracle had its own sphere of influence. Yet, when any one of the seven gave forth knowledge of the primal wisdom of the world, he spoke with the voice of the whole collegium. The great Sun-initiate, who brought the ancient Atlantean wisdom from the West to the East, bestowed it upon the Rishis in a special manner so as to enable them to develop post-Atlantean civilization. He gave the ancient Atlantean wisdom to Zarathustra in a different form, so that he could speak as I have already indicated.

The Rishis declared ‘To reach divinity men must regard everything around them, all that is presented to their senses, as Maya or illusion; they must turn away from the outer world and direct their glance inwards then a quite different world will appear from that which is before them.’

Thus the ancient Indian Rishis taught that by turning away from the deceptive world of illusion and developing their inner life, men could rise to divine spiritual spheres. Zarathustra taught otherwise. Instead of turning away from external manifestations and regarding them as Maya he said: ‘This Maya or illusion is the revelation, the true garment, of Divine Existence; our duty is not to turn from it but to investigate it and to see in the physical light of the Sun an external garment within which Ahura Mazdao lives and moves.’

Thus in a certain sense the standpoint of Zarathustra was the opposite to that of the Rishis. The most significant fact of post-Indian culture was that what man gained through his spiritual and mental activities had to be impressed upon the outer world. It has already been shown how Zarathustra passed on his best possessions to Moses and Hermes. In order that the wisdom of Moses might be fruitful and bear seed in the right way, this seed had to be implanted in the race that had Abraham for its progenitor. Abraham was the first who acquired the organ through which the Jehovah consciousness could be evolved, but he had to realize that the God who spoke in him through his physical powers of comprehension, spoke with the same voice as the eternal all-pervading God of the Mysteries; only that He revealed Himself to Abraham in a more restricted manner, that is, in a way Abraham was able to understand.

For such a mighty Being as the great Atlantean Sun-initiate it is not immediately possible to speak in comprehensible words to those living in some age who have a special mission. A Being so exalted—one who in his own individuality leads an eternal existence, and of whom it has been rightly said (indicating his eternal nature)—that he was without name or age, without father or mother—such a great guide of human existence could only reveal himself; to those whom he sought, by assuming a form that could bring him in contact with them. Therefore in order to give Abraham the appropriate illumination, the individual who had been the teacher of the Rishis and of Zarathustra, assumed a form in which he was clothed in the etheric body of a forefather of Abraham—this was the etheric sheath of Shem, the son of Noah—a forefather of Abraham. In the same way as the etheric garment of Zarathustra had been preserved for Moses, this etheric body of Shem had persisted, and was used by the great Sun-initiate so that he might make himself known to Abraham. The meeting of Abraham with the great Initiate of the Sun-Mysteries is described in the Old Testament. It is the meeting of Abraham with the King, the Priest of the Most High God, Melchisedek or Malekzadik. This meeting of Abraham with the great Sun-initiate is of the greatest, the most universal importance. Lest his presence might overwhelm Abraham this great Being only showed himself in the etheric body of Shem, the ancestor of the Semitic race. Most significantly something is here hinted at in the Bible which is, unfortunately, seldom understood; it refers to whence that something came which Melchisedek was in a position to impart to Abraham.

What could Melchisedek give to Abraham? He could impart to him the secret of the Sun-existence which sprang from the same source as the revelations prophetically foretold, in the first place, by Zarathustra. Naturally, these could only be comprehended by Abraham in his own way. Let us picture the facts told by Zarathustra to his chosen pupils. He spoke to them of Ahura Mazdao who dwelt spiritually behind the sunlight, and said: ‘Behold, behind the sun is something not yet united with the earth, but which will one day stream forth into earthly evolution and descend to earth.’ We must realize that Zarathustra could here only be prophesying of the Sun Spirit, the Christ, of Whom he said, ‘He will come in a human body.’ If we accept this, we must also accept the fact that still deeper revelations of the Sun Mysteries had to be given to those whose mission it was to prepare for the incarnation of Christ on earth. This took place when Zarathustra's own instructor came in contact with Abraham, and the outpouring of power that came from him emanated from the same source as that which came from Christ. This is indicated symbolically in the Bible, where it says: ‘When Abraham met Melchisedek, the King of Salem—this priest of the most high God brought to him bread and the juice of the grape.’ Bread and the juice of the grape were dispensed on another occasion. In the same way as bread and wine were to become the expression of the Mystery of Christ in the institution of the Last Supper for those who believed in Him, this mystery was expressed here also. The similarity of the two sacrificial acts is described with such clearness that it shows that Melchisedek drew from the same source as the Christ.

Thus an indirect outpouring of that which was destined to come to earth at a later period took place through Melchisedek. This influence was to have direct results on Abraham, the great preparer of what took place later. The result of Abraham's meeting with Melchisedek was that he now had some understanding that the outpouring of power he felt stirring within him and which he referred to as Jehovah—the highest to which his thought could rise—had the same origin as the consciousness of the Initiates—the highest wisdom attainable by man—and that it emanated from the mighty God Who fills all worlds with life and movement. This was the new consciousness that dawned in Abraham. He now knew that in the Hebrew blood, passing down from generation to generation, there actually flowed something that could only rightly be compared with what clairvoyant vision beheld when it reached forth to the mystery of existence, and understood the language of the cosmos.

I have already said that in the Mysteries the secrets of the cosmos were expressed in a language of the stars, that the teachers there made use of words and images derived from the constellations. In the movements of the stars, in their relative positions one to another, they saw pictures by means of which they sought to express man's spiritual experiences when he raised himself to what was divinely spiritual.

What did the Mystery wisdom read in the starry script? It read there the secrets of the Godhead, of Him Who lives and weaves in and through the world. The disposition of the stars was a visible expression of this Godhead. Raising his eyes to the firmament man would say, ‘There God reveals Himself; and the way in which He makes Himself known is indicated in the order and harmony of the stars.’ Thus according to this conception, the God of the universe revealed Himself through the stars. If this God was to manifest in a special way in the mission of the Hebrew people, He must do so in accordance with the plan set forth in the starry courses of the heavens. This means that in the blood of the generations, which was the external instrument for the manifestation of Jehovah, a similar ordering should obtain as that expressed in the ordering of the stars. In the line of descent from Abraham, there had to be something which in the course of generations would be a reflection of the starry script. Accordingly, it was promised to Abraham, ‘Thy descendants shall be ordered as the stars in Heaven,’ this is the true rendering of the statement usually given as, ‘Thy descendants shall be as numerous as the stars in Heaven,’ which only refers to the number of the descendants. The statement is not concerned with the numbers but indicates how the same order should rule in Abraham's descendants as was found in the grouping of the stars—the language of the gods.

People looked up to the Zodiac; and in the position of the planets to the Zodiac, constellations were expressed in which they found a language expressing the deeds of the gods. The close connection existing in the Zodiac and in the relation of the planets to the twelve signs of the Zodiac, had to be expressed in the descendants of Abraham. Thus, in the twelve sons of Jacob, and in the twelve tribes of the Hebrew people, we have the reflection of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. As the language of the gods finds expression above in the twelve starry signs, so Jehovah is manifested in the blood flowing through the generations of the twelve tribes that descended from the twelve sons of Jacob. What was ordered within the constellations of the Zodiac we designate by the names of the planets as Venus, Mercury, Moon, Sun, etc., and that which throughout the ages played a special part in different periods of the life of the Hebrew people we have compared with the course of the planets through the Zodiac. For instance, we showed how David, the kingly singer, has to be compared with Hermes or Mercury; and the period of the Babylonian captivity, that is, the form the manifestation of Jehovah assumed through the entrance of a new impulse six hundred years before our era, with the planet Venus.

It had to be indicated to Abraham, for instance, that the position in the race held by such a personality as David, was on parallel lines with that of Mercury in the Zodiac. The tribe of Judah corresponding to the constellation Leo, the entrance of David into that tribe in the course of Jewish history, corresponded in the cosmos to the occultation of Leo by Mercury.

In every detail—in the descent, in the conferring of the kingly or priestly dignities, in the struggles and victories of one or other of the tribes, in the whole history of the Hebrew people we can see what corresponds to the occultation of the several constellations in outer space. This lies in the significant words: ‘Thy descendants shall be ordered in accordance with the harmony of the stars in Heaven!’ We must not only see in documents that are founded on occultism the trivialities usually seen there, but we must recognize their profound depth.

When studied in this way we see that order did in fact exist in the sequence of the generations as related in the Gospel of Matthew; and that the Evangelist shows us the unique composition of the blood of that body which the individuality of Zarathustra assumed in order that he might be the means by which the manifestation of Christ on earth could be brought to pass.

Let us therefore ask: What was attained in the course of the forty-two generations from Abraham to Joseph? What was attained was, that in the last of the generations a blending of the blood in accordance with the laws of the stars—as taught in the Holy Mysteries—had been accomplished. In this blending of the blood necessary to the Zarathustra individuality for the accomplishment of his great work, there was an inner order and harmony that corresponded to one of the most beautiful and significant arrangements of the stellar system. The blending of blood, prepared throughout many generations for the reincarnating Zarathustra, was therefore a reflection of the whole cosmos.

All this is to be found in that great original Scripture, which, if I may venture to say so, lies before us in weakened form in the Gospel of Matthew. It is based on the profound mystery of the development of a people as the reflection of a cosmic development. This was felt by those who first knew something of the mighty Mystery of Christ. To them it already seemed that in the blood of the Jesus of Nazareth of Whom this Gospel tells, they could perceive a reflection of the Spirit that rules the whole cosmos. They gave expression to this Mystery in the words: In the blood which is to be the abode of the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth lives the Spirit of the whole cosmos. Therefore, if this physical body is to be born, it must be an image of the Spirit of the whole cosmos, the Spirit ruling the whole world.

This was the original form of expression. It declared the power inherent in the blended blood of Zarathustra—of Jesus of Nazareth—to be the power of the Spirit of our whole universe—even that Spirit, who, after the separation of the sun from the earth, brooded over and permeated the development of that which had separated itself out in the course of worldly evolution.

From the lectures given in Munich, referred to above, it was shown that the words of Genesis, ‘B'raschit bara Elohim eth haschamajim v'eth h'areths,’ must not be translated lightly according to modern methods which have lost touch with the ancient meaning. If their true meaning is sought, it must be given as follows: ‘In everything that came over from the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions, the thought of the Elohim brooded in cosmic activity; in all that manifested outwardly, as in all that stirred inwardly. Darkness reigned over all this. But permeating it and brooding over it, filling it with warmth, as a hen broods over its eggs, was the Creative Spirit of the Elohim, Ruach.’

The Spirit that brooded there was the same, in every respect, as the Spirit that created the harmonious order which finds expression in the starry constellations. The original Initiates of the Christian Mysteries recognized in the blending of the blood of Jesus of Nazareth an image of the work accomplished by the Ruach-Elohim throughout the universe. Therefore they said of the blood which was thus prepared for this Great Event that it was ‘created by the Spirit of the Universe,’ the Spirit who is described in the opening chapter of Genesis as ‘Ruach’ in that most important passage beginning—‘B'raschit bara Elohim ...’

This holy meaning, a meaning far beyond the usual trivial rendering, lies at the root of what is called ‘the Conception out of the Holy Spirit of the Universe.’ It lies at the root of the saying, ‘She who gave birth to this Being was filled with the power of the Spirit of the Universe!’ We need but sense the full greatness of such Mystery to know that the fact presents something infinitely higher than the exoteric idea of the ‘immaculate conception.’

References to two things in the Bible will suffice to deflect the mind from the usual trivial explanation of the immaculate conception and lead it to the recognition of the true point of view. One is, why should the writer of the Gospel of Matthew give the whole line of descent from Abraham to Joseph if he wished in any way to show that the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was unconcerned with the sequence of the generations? He is very careful to tell how the blood of Abraham passed down to Joseph. What sense would there be in saying that this blood had no connection with the blood of Jesus of Nazareth? The other fact that must be taken into consideration is that ‘Ruach-Elohim,’ who, in the Bible, is called the ‘Holy Spirit’ or ‘Holy Ghost’ is of the feminine gender in the Hebrew language.

This point we will consider later. For the moment let it only awaken within us a feeling for the grandeur of the idea which lies at the very root of this Mystery.

The Event taking place at the beginning of our era, and only known to the wise men who were initiated into the secrets of the Universe, found expression first in the Aramaic language, in an ancient document upon which the Gospel of Matthew was based. It can be proved, not only by occult means, but by philological investigation, that this document, which is the foundation of the Gospel of Matthew, existed as early as the year 71 A.D. The true origin of this Gospel is given in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact. Here, however, as we are concerned with Occult Science not Philology, reference need only be made to one thing in the literature of the Talmud, which is fully confirmed by Jewish erudition. In this literature it is stated that Rabbi Gamaliel II. was involved in a lawsuit with his sister about a legacy from his father, who died fighting against the Romans in the year 70 A.D. We are told that the Rabbi Gamaliel II. appeared before a judge who was a Jewish Christian. Such individuals existed in the courts ofjustice established for the Jews by the Romans. In this case a strange thing happened. Rabbi Gamaliel contested with his sister his father's inheritance; he declared before the judge, who knew something of Christianity, that according to Jewish law, the son only and not the daughter could inherit, and therefore he was the sole inheritor. The judge, stating that in the circle in which he practised the Thora was set aside, said that since Gamaliel sought justice and judgment from him he could not give it merely according to Jewish law, but according to the law set up in its stead. The Rabbi's only way now was to bribe the judge. He did so, and the following day the judge made a citation that was in reality a plagiarism from the original Aramaic script of the Matthew Gospel. He said, ‘Christ did not come into the world to break the law of Moses, but to fulfil it.’ He thought to stifle the pangs of conscience for deflecting the law in Gamaliel's favour by saying that he judged nevertheless according to the Christian doctrine.

From this we know that in the year 71 there existed a Christian document containing words found to-day in the Gospel of Matthew. This is, therefore, an external proof of the existence of the Aramaic document, or part of it, from which the Gospel is derived.

The results of occult investigation have still to be given, but the above has been mentioned to show that when seeking the aid of external Science, it is not wise to consider every other kind of literary evidence and yet ignore the Talmud literature, as is often done—for the latter is of great importance for what one can know of these things exoterically. Thus there is good external justification for placing the Gospel of Matthew comparatively early, and regarding its compilers as men not far removed in time from the events of Palestine. It is even externally certain that it would have been impossible at that time to deny that Jesus Christ had lived, and to say: He of whom we speak, did not live at the beginning of our era. Half-a-century had not yet elapsed, so that men were still able to speak to eye-witnesses who would not state what could not be proved. Exoterically these things are of importance, and we only mention them in confirmation of the esoteric view.

We have seen how, through cosmic mysteries, a body had been prepared in the course of human evolution, as it were, from the filtrated blood of the Hebrew people and how into this body, in which the great initiate Zarathustra incarnated, the order of the Universe itself had entered. It is of this Zarathustra-individuality and none other that Matthew speaks.

It must not be imagined that what we have described out of the profoundest Mysteries of earthly evolution was perceived as clearly by everyone. Even to contemporaries this was deeply veiled, and was only comprehended by a few Initiates. Hence the deep silence is comprehensible concerning all that could then be disclosed about the greatest event in human evolution. If the historians of to-day turn to their records and find these records silent, it should not occasion surprise; such silence is entirely natural.

Having explained the greatest event of our evolution from the side of Zarathustra, it is well that we should now consider another stream of influence preparatory to this great Event. Very many things took place immediately before and immediately after the Christ Event in human evolution. Preparation had been made for it a long time in advance. Just as it was prepared for externally in the sending forth of Moses and Hermes by Zarathustra, and by the work of Meichisedek on the outer sheath of Jesus of Nazareth in the Sun-Mysteries, it was prepared for in another way through what might be called a ‘neighbouring stream’ to the main great current. This ‘neighbouring stream’ was slowly prepared in centres of which external history informs us when dealing with those people described by Philo as the Therapeutze. The Therapeuta were members of a secret sect who sought the purification of their souls by inward paths, trying to drive out what had been debased in them through external intercourse and external knowledge, and to raise themselves to pure spiritual spheres. An offshoot of this sect, among whom this neighbouring stream of culture was carried still further, were the Essaers or Essenes. All the people who were united in the sects of the Therapeutae and Essenes were under a certain common spiritual guidance. They are briefly described in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact. If you would know something of this spiritual guidance exoterically, you need only recall the lectures given last year on the Gospel of St. Luke. The Mystery of Gautama Buddha, as given exoterically in Oriental literature, was there dealt with, and we explained that he who seeks to become a ‘Buddha’ must in the course of evolution first become a ‘Bodhisattva.’ We explained further that the individual known to history as the ‘Buddha’ had previously been a Bodhisattva. He was a Bodhisattva until the twenty-ninth year of his physical existence, during which time he lived as the son of King Sudhodana. It was only in his twenty-ninth year, through inner soul-development, that he evolved from a Bodhisattva to a Buddha. There is a long sequence of Bodhisattvas in human evolution, and he who attained Buddhahood six hundred years before our era is one of these Bodhisattvas who guided human evolution. An individual who rises from the dignity of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha does not again incarnate in a physical body on earth.

It was explained in the course of the lectures referred to above how Buddha was manifest at the birth of the Jesus of the Gospel of St. Luke in that he united himself with the etheric body of him who is known as the Nathan Jesus; and it was shown that this is a different Jesus from the one spoken of in the first part of the Gospel of Matthew.

The attainment of Buddha-hood by the son of King Sudhodana must be regarded as the close of an ancient evolution. It was in fact the same stream of evolution as is connected with the Holy Rishis of India. As soon as a Bodhisattva attains Buddha-hood a successor always appears in his place. This is mentioned in an ancient Indian legend where it tells that the Bodhisattva, before he came to earth as the son of King Sudhodana when he was to attain the dignity of Buddha-hood, and while still in spiritual realms, passed on his Bodhisattva crown to his successor.

Ever since that time there has been a successor to the Bodhisattva who then attained Buddha-hood; and the new Bodhisattva, who continued working as such, had a special task for human evolution. The task appointed to him was to guide spiritually the movement then making itself felt among the circles of the Therapeutac and the Essenes. There his influence worked. In the follower of Gautama Buddha we have to recognize the spiritual guide of the Essenes. During the reign of King Alexander Jannai (circa 125-77 B.C.), this Bodhisattva sent a particular individual to lead the Essenes; he was, therefore, the leader of the Essenes about a century before Christ. He is well known to occultism and to the external literature of the Talmud. Thus, a century before our era, before the appearance of Christ on earth, there was an individuality, who has nothing to do with the Jesus of the Luke-Gospel and nothing to do with the Jesus of the Matthew-Gospel, who was a guide and leader in the Essene Community. He is known under the name of Jesus, the son of Pandira, Jeschua ben Pandira. Jewish literature has fabricated many things regarding this individual, and these fables have recently been revived. He was a great and noble personality, and must not be confused, as is done by some students of the Talmud, with Jesus of Nazareth, the subject of these lectures. We recognize this Essene forerunner of Christianity in Jesus, son of Pandira, and we know that he was stoned to death by those who, at that time, saw blasphemy in the teachings of the Essenes. After being accused of blasphemy and heresy he was stoned and hanged on a tree, so that this disgrace might be added to the punishment already inflicted. This is an occult fact, and is also to be found in the literature of the Talmud.

In this Jeschua ben Pandira we have to recognize a personality under the protection of the Bodhisattva who succeeded the Bodhisattva, son of Sudhodana, who later became Buddha. The matter is absolutely clear; we have to recognize here a kind of preparation, a neighbouring stream to the main stream of Christianity, springing from the successor of that Buddha. He is the present Bodhisattva who will one day become the Maitreya Buddha, and who sent his messenger among the Essenes to bring that to pass which will be described in the succeeding lectures.

Thus we have to seek the name ‘Jesus’ in the individual of Whom the Gospels of Matthew and Luke speak; but we have also to seek it a hundred years before our era in the circle of the Essenes, in that noble personality regarding whom all that the Talmud literature relates is calumny; who was accused of blasphemy and heresy, stoned, and hanged upon a tree.

Jesus ben Pandira and Initiation among the Essenes. The secret of numbers. Reflection of cosmic conditions in human evolution. The secret of the blood in the line of descent, and the secret of cosmic space

Ww have to realize that Jesus ben Pandira was in no way related to the personality or individuality of either the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew or of the Gospel of Luke, or any other Gospel; he lived a hundred years before the Christ Event, and was stoned and hanged upon a tree. It is most important that he should not be confused with the Jesus of the Gospels.

Of Jesus ben Pandira it need only be stated that neither occult knowledge nor any clairvoyant faculties are necessary to prove his existence, for information in regard to this can be had from the Hebrew Talmud. Confusion with the actual Jesus has occurred at various times, even as early as the second century of the Christian era. Having stated emphatically that Jesus ben Pandira is not to be identified with the Jesus of the Evangelists, it is nevertheless necessary to establish the real historical connection of these two personalities. This is only possible by means of occult investigation; the connection between them only emerges after a study of the evolution of mankind and those who guide it.

Gazing upwards to those beings who lead human development, we come at last to a group of high individualities who, according to Eastern terminology, are called Bodhisattvas—for it is in the East where knowledge of them has been established. There are many Bodhisattvas; they are the great teachers of mankind. From the spiritual worlds they infuse into humanity through the Mystery schools what according to the degree of human ripeness is appropriate to each epoch. Bodhisattvas succeed one another throughout the ages. Two of them are of special interest to present humanity, one, who as son of King Sudhodana became Buddha; and the other, his successor in this dignity, who is still a Bodhisattva. Both Oriental wisdom and clairvoyant investigation agree that the latter's mission will extend over the next two thousand five hundred years, when this Bodhisattva will rise to the higher rank of Buddha as did his predecessor. This, the present Bodhisattva will then be exalted to the dignity of Maitreya Buddha. In the long line of Bodhisattvas we have to recognize the great guiding teachers of evolution, but they should not be confused with the source of their teaching, the source from which they themselves draw what they bestow upon humanity. Rather we have to picture a collegium of Bodhisattvas, and the centre of this collegium is the living source whence this teaching is derived. This living source is none other than He Whom we call the Christ, from Whom all Bodhisattvas receive what in due course they hand on to humanity. A Bodhisattva devotes himself principally to teaching, but upon attaining Buddha-hood he ceases to descend into incarnation, and his mission becomes different. In accordance with all Eastern philosophy it can be said that Gautama Buddha, who, in his last incarnation, was the son of King Sudhodana, has since then only experienced incorporation as far as the etheric body. In the course of lectures on the Gospel of Luke we explained what the next task of this Buddha was.

When the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was born—the Nathan Jesus of whom Luke tells, and who is not to be confused with the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew—the Being of the Buddha, who was then incorporated as far as the etheric body, entered into the astral body of the Nathan Jesus. It is therefore possible to say that having incarnated as Gautama Buddha, this Being did not come again as a teacher, but was henceforth present as a living force. He had become an actual force working from the spiritual world into our physical world.

To teach is one thing; to work as a living force with the forces of growth is something quite different. A Bodhisattva is a teacher up to the moment he attains Buddha-hood, from then onwards he becomes a vital force, filling with constructive power everything with which he is concerned. In this way the Buddha entered the organism of the Nathan Jesus as described by Luke. From the sixth century B.C. it is to the Buddha's successor, the coming Maitreya Buddha, that humanity must look for its teacher. His chosen instrument was the circle of the Therapeutæ and Essenes, and he poured down his inspiration especially through his disciple, Jesus, the son of Pandira, the purest, the most noted, the most exalted of them all. Thus we have to realize that the content of this Bodhisattva-teaching streamed forth into humanity through the Essenes.

The actual sect of the Essenes, as regards its profounder teaching, disappeared comparatively soon after the Christ Event, as external history testifies. Hence it need not sound improbable when I say that they were employed as a means for bringing down from the spheres of the Bodhisattvas what was necessary to prepare humanity to grasp the mighty event of the coming of Christ. The most important teaching man had received to aid him in the understanding of the Christ Event had its source in these communities. Jesus ben Pandira was chosen to receive inspiration from that Bodhisattva who was destined to become the Maitreya Buddha, and whose influence was active among the Essenes; he was inspired to impart a teaching that was to make comprehensible the Mystery of Palestine—the Mystery of Christ. External history knows little of the Essenes, more exact information regarding them is only possible with the aid of occult investigation; hence in a society like this I can speak without hesitation of secrets known to the Essenes and Therapeutæ that are needful to an understanding of the Gospel of Matthew.

These communities flourished a hundred years before the Christ Event, and taught how preparation was to be made for it. Their most important feature was the manner of their initiation. It was specially adapted to evoke an understanding, through clairvoyant perception, of the significance of Hebraism and Abrahamism as connected with the Christ Event. This was a mystery peculiar to these communities. The very purpose of their initiation was to impart clairvoyant perception in this connection. A follower of the Essenes had in the first place to attain full appreciation of the significance of what had come to pass in the Hebrew race through Abraham. Through his own individual vision, an Essene had to see in Abraham a true forefather of the race, one in whom a seed had been implanted which then, by means of the blood, percolated from generation to generation, as explained in the last lecture.

To understand how something of such great importance in human evolution could take place through a personality like Abraham, we must keep in mind a most important saying. This saying shows that whenever a man is destined to be a special instrument for human evolution he must be in direct contact with some divine spiritual being.

Those who attended the performance of the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, given at Munich, and those who have read it, know that one of the most important dramatic manifestations occurs where the hierophant informs Maria that her mission will only be possible after such an influx from a higher being has taken place. This was actually accomplished in her. What then took place may be called a separation of the higher from the lower principles, which made it possible for the latter to be possessed by a subordinate spirit. All this is to be found in the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, and if allowed to act on the soul, and not accepted lightly, it directs our attention to mighty secrets of human evolution.

Abraham having been selected for his great mission, the Spirit that had been recognized in early Atlantis as the Spirit who moved and lived in all the surrounding world had to enter into his inner organism. This happened for the first time in the case of Abraham, and therefore a change in man's spiritual perception then became possible for the first time. A divine Being implanted as it were a germ in Abraham's organism that was to enter all the other organisms descending from him in the direct line.

An Essene of that time would have said: The seed which actually formed the Hebrew people so as to fit them to be the vehicle for the mission of Christ, was first implanted in them by the mysterious Being only to be discovered when they looked back through the generations to Abraham. This Being worked as a kind of Folk-spirit from out the inner organism of Abraham in the blood of the Hebrew people. To reach some understanding of the crowning mystery of human evolution, it is necessary to rise to the Spirit who implanted this seed, and seek him where he was before he had entered into Abraham's organization. In order to rise to this Spirit who had organized and inspired the Hebrew people, to know him in his purity, the Essenes felt it to be necessary to pass through a certain training; they felt they must purify themselves from all that had come to human souls from the physical world since the time of Abraham. And further, an Essene would declare: The spiritual being which man bears within him, and all the other spiritual beings concerned with his development, are only to be seen in their purity in the spiritual world. As found in man, they have become defiled by the forces of the physical world.

From the point of view of the Essenes (which in a certain sphere of knowledge is absolutely correct), every single person then living had impurities in his soul from early times which disturbed his free vision of the Spiritual Being who had implanted the attribute in Abraham which has been described. Every Essene sought in his soul to be purified from what had entered him in this way, and which dimmed his vision of the Being who dwelt in the blood passing through the generations, the Being who could only be rightly seen after much purification. All the methods of their training were directed towards freeing the soul from its inherited tendencies and influences that clouded its vision and hid the spiritual inspirer of Abraham. Not only had man a spiritual being within him, but this being had been sullied through these inherited tendencies.

There is a law in Spiritual Science which was perceived by the Essenes through their clairvoyant investigation and spiritual vision: that hereditary influences only cease to be active when a man has passed through forty-two stages in the line of descent; only then has he purged his soul of inherited influences. What is inherited by man from father and mother, from grandfather and grandmother, and so on, becomes feebler the farther back the line is traced; beyond forty-two generations nothing more of this could be found, which means that the influence of inheritance is then lost. By careful training and inner exercises, the Essenes directed their attention towards eliminating the impurities of the forty-two generations. This meant a severe training on a mystical path of forty-two clearly defined degrees or stages. Once these were passed, the Essene knew he was freed from the influences of the world of sense, and had reached the point where he experienced his inner self; where he felt the centre of his being to be united with Divinity. Therefore said he: ‘In going through these forty-two stages I ascend to God—to the God with whom I am concerned.’

The Essenes and the Therapeutæ had a clear vision of man's path to a divine Being who had not as yet descended into matter; they alone knew the truth of the fact which can be described as the ‘Event of Abraham’ they knew it at least in so far as it was concerned with inheritance. They also knew that if a man was to rise to a Being who was to enter the line of inheritance he must reach a place where he was no longer steeped in matter he must pass through forty-two stages of development corresponding to the forty-two generations; then he would find that Being. The Essene knew something more; he knew just as man has to rise through these forty-two stages to reach Divinity, so this Divine Being must descend, in the reverse direction, through forty-two generations if He was to enter into physical humanity. If man required to rise through forty-two stages before attaining to God, God had to descend through forty-two stages in order to become a man among men. So taught the Essenes, and so taught above all Jesus ben Pandira, who was inspired by the Bodhisattva. Having learnt this we know the source whence flowed the knowledge given out by the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, and exactly why he traces back these forty-two generations.

Jesus ben Pandira, who instructed the Essenes in these matters, lived a century before these forty-two generations could be completed. He taught them that advance beyond a certain point on their journey through the forty-two stages was only possible if an historical event were connected with it, that any further achievement could only come by grace from above. A time, however, would come, he told them, when this would be a natural event; a man would be born who, through the power in his own blood, would be able to rise so high that divine Spiritual Forces could descend into him, which he had need of in order that he might make fully manifest the Spirit of the Race—the Spirit of Jahve—in the blood of the Hebrew people. Jesus ben Pandira taught them further; that if Zarathustra, he who would bring Ahura Mazdao, were to incarnate in human form, this could only come to pass if this human form had been so prepared that the Divine Spirit ensouling it had passed down through forty-two generations.

It is now apparent that the teaching concerning the descent through the generations with which the Gospel of Matthew begins had its origin among the sect of the Essenes. If these facts are to be fully understood we must refer to something still deeper in this whole connection.

Everything concerned with human evolution confronts us, as it were, from two sides, for the simple reason that man is a two-fold being. Seen during waking consciousness, when the four members of his being are united, the reason for man's dual nature is not at first discernible. But it is easily seen at night when one part, consisting of physical body and etheric body, remains in the physical world, and the other, composed of the astral body and ego, leaves it. Man is made up of these two parts. The human qualities and attributes of the physical world belong to the physical and etheric bodies alone, although the other members have a share in them during the waking state. When awake, man functions by means of his astral body and ego in the other two members; when asleep he leaves them to themselves. The moment that he falls asleep, however, the beings and forces of the cosmos begin to function in, and to permeate, the forsaken members, so that there is a constant influx from the cosmos into the physical and etheric bodies of man. That part of him, however, which is left sleeping in bed, is actually limited to the forty-two generations, during which time it is under the law of inheritance. Beginning with the first generation and taking all that then belonged to physical nature, we shall find at the end, if we trace this through forty-two generations, nothing of what was the most essential in the first case. Thus in six times seven generations are comprised all the active characteristics of the physical and etheric bodies of a man. The inherited tendencies found in these two bodies must be sought for among his ancestors, but only in the forty-two preceding generations; beyond that time they cannot be traced, all belonging to an earlier generation has disappeared.

Human evolution in time is based on a certain numerical relationship. If we consider this more closely we find everything concerning the physical body is limited to forty-two generations, because everything connected with evolution in time is connected with the number seven. The Essenes knew this. An Essene said to himself: ‘Thou must pass through six times seven stages—that is forty-two—thou wilt then have arrived at the last seven which complete the sevenfold count, making forty-nine stages in all.’ What lies beyond the forty-two stages cannot be attributed to the forces and beings active in the physical and etheric body. The whole evolution of these bodies is finished—in accordance with the sevenfold law—after seven times seven generations, but during the last seven of these a complete change has taken place, and nothing of the first generation remains. What we are now concerned with is something entirely new in the realm into which man enters after the forty-two generations. We are now no longer concerned with a human existence but with a superhuman one. The six times seven generations, therefore, are connected entirely with the earth, and the seven times seven that follows is connected with what is beyond the earth; that is fruit for the spiritual world.

Hence the people from among whom the Gospel of Matthew had its origin, expressed their thoughts somewhat in this way: ‘The physical body used by Zarathustra had to be so ripe at the end of forty-two generations that it was already on the verge of becoming spiritualized; it was at the point where deification could take place.’ This could have taken place at the beginning of the forty-third generation, but it did not; this body allowed itself to be used by another being, who, as the spirit of Zarathustra, incarnated on earth as Jesus of Nazareth. In the events capable of providing a fitting body and fitting blood for the soul of Zarathustra, in Jesus of Nazareth, everything was fulfilled in accordance with this mystery of numbers. Everything relating to the physical and etheric body in human evolution has been prepared in this way.

Now, however, there are in man—and hence too in him who was to be the bearer of the Christ-being—not only a physical and an etheric body, but also an astral body and ego. Preparation therefore had to be made not only for a suitable physical and etheric body, but what was needful had also to be done to prepare a suitable astral body and ego. For such a mighty Event not one, but two personalities were necessary. The physical and etheric bodies were prepared in the case of the personality described in the Gospel of Matthew; the astral body and ego were prepared in another personality—the Nathan Jesus, of whom the Gospel of Luke relates. For the early years this was another personality. While the Matthew Jesus received a suitable physical and etheric organism, the Luke Jesus received the appropriate astral-body and bearer of the ego.

How could this come to pass? We have seen that the forces of the forty-two generations had to be prepared in order that the sheaths might come about which were necessary for the Jesus of the Matthew gospel. The astral body and ego had also to be prepared in order to appear later in the appropriate manner. How this happened we shall now explain.

As an introduction to the understanding of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, for whom special preparation had also to be made, let us consider the nature of sleep. The notion, derived from the assertions of lower clairvoyance, that the whole astral and ego-nature of man is contained within the nebulous appearance seen near the body of a sleeping man, is entirely erroneous. For it is a fact that during sleep, when man forsakes his physical and etheric sheaths, he expands, and is spread abroad through the whole cosmos. The mystery of the sleeping state is contained in the fact that the astral body expands through the whole stellar world, attracting towards it the purest cosmic forces; and these forces man brings with him when at the moment of awakening he plunges once more into his physical and etheric bodies. Hence he emerges from sleep strengthened by what he has derived from the whole cosmos.

If man were clairvoyant to-day in the highest sense—and this was the same at the time of Christ Jesus—what must then take place in him? Modern man is normally unconscious during sleep when with his astral body and ego he goes forth from his physical and etheric bodies; clairvoyant consciousness must, however, become capable of perception by means of the astral body and ego, without the aid of the physical and etheric bodies. It will then belong to the world the stars, and will not only perceive this world but actually enter into it. Just as the consciousness of the Essene had to rise through successive stages (at the root of which lay the number seven), so man must surmount the stages which enable him to perceive universal space clairvoyantly.

The dangers attending both courses of development I have often pointed out.

The development of the Essenes was fundamentally a penetration into the physical body and etheric body, that they might find their God. With them it was as if a man on awakening did not see the world around him, but plunged into his physical and etheric bodies in order to realize their forces; therefore to see what was external from within. Man's descent into his physical vehicles on awakening is not a conscious act, for at that moment consciousness is attracted to the environment, and is not directed to the forces within his physical and etheric bodies. The essential fact for the Essene was, that, disregarding his environment, he should dip down into his own physical vehicles and perceive all the forces that in the sense of occult science had their rise in the mystery of the six times seven generations.

Similar and even mightier exertions are necessary if a man is to ascend into the cosmos and discover its secrets. In penetrating into his own inner being he is only exposed to the danger of being overcome by the forces of this being, the desires and passions of its depths, of which he is ordinarily unaware and of which he does not dream. Ordinary training usually prevents knowledge of these forces—his attention being attracted to the emergence of the outer world on awakening, so that he should not be overcome by this. Another danger meets him when he experiences ‘expansion over the whole cosmos.’ He who experiences this moment, by retaining his consciousness during sleep, he who is able to perceive the spiritual world through the instrumentality of his astral body and ego, is confronted by a great danger. Like a man attempting to gaze at the sun, he is blinded and bewildered by the overwhelming grandeur of his experiences.

Just as the different stages of wisdom striven for by the Essenes, in order to learn of the hereditary tendencies in the physical and etheric bodies, were connected with the mystery of numbers (six x seven), so there was a secret number in the Mysteries of the Great World, showing how knowledge of these could be acquired. The best approach to these mysteries is through the stars themselves which, in their movements and groupings into constellations, provide a form of expression—a language. As, by passing through six times seven stages man attains the key to the mysteries of his own inner being; twelve times seven or eighty-four stages are necessary before he can rise to the spiritual mysteries of universal space. When we have surmounted the eighty-four stages we are no longer blinded by the complexity of these spiritual cosmic forces. Beyond these eighty-four stages we have attained that calm wherein a way may be found through the mighty labyrinth.

This was taught to a certain extent among the Essenes. A person having attained clairvoyance during sleep, as just described, could pour his being forth into something that is expressed in the mystery of numbers as twelve times seven. Anyone who has attained to the ‘twelve times seven’ degree is already in spiritual realms, for when he has completed the eleven times seven, he has already reached the verge of the Mysteries. As in the other, the seven times seven, he is already in the spiritual realm; so he is in the twelve times seven. On the latter path the spiritual realm is beyond the eleven times seven stage. Such are the number of the stages to be passed through by the astral body and ego. All this is imprinted in the starry script, seven is the number derived from the planets; they are seven in number; what man has to pass through in cosmic space is derived from the number twelve, the number of the Signs of the Zodiac.

As the seven planets group themselves within, and pass through the twelve signs, so if man is to live into cosmic space he must pass through seven times twelve, or rather seven times eleven stages, to attain spirituality. The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac may be pictured as forming a spiritual periphery in the centre of which is man himself. Now man does not reach the spiritual realm spread around him simply by advancing from a centre outwards; he must expand in spiral form; he must advance, as it were, in seven spiral movements. Each time he completes one spiral turn he has passed through all the twelve signs; he has in this way to pass through seven times twelve points. Man gradually expands in spiral form through the cosmos—this is naturally only an image for what man experiences—and in circling thus, on the seventh journey through the twelve signs, spirituality is reached. Then instead of regarding the cosmos from the central point of his own self; he regards it from the spiritual circumference—from twelve points of view—and from these different aspects he views the external world. It is not enough to see things from one point only, they must be considered from twelve aspects.

He who is in quest of what is divinely spiritual must guide his astral body and ego in this way through eleven times seven stages, and at the twelfth he is in the spiritual world.

If Divinity wished to descend and assume a human ego, it would likewise have to pass down through eleven times seven stages. So when the Gospel of Luke wished to describe the spiritual forces that prepared a human astral body and ego to be the bearer of the Christ, it had to relate how the divine force descended through eleven times seven stages. This is truly told in the Gospel of Luke. Because this Gospel tells of the personality for whom the astral body and ego were prepared, it is not concerned, like the Gospel of Matthew, with six times seven generations, but with eleven times seven successive stages through which is traced down, from God Himself; that which dwelt in the individuality of the Luke-Jesus. These seventy-seven different human stages can be counted in the Gospel of Luke.

Because the Gospel of Matthew describes the mystery of the descent of the divine force which worked constructively within the physical and etheric bodies, the ruling number in it must be six times seven. In the Gospel of Luke, because it describes the descent of the divine force which built the astral body and ego, the number must be eleven times seven. Such is the infinite depth of the origin of these facts as related in the Gospels. These Gospels of Luke and Matthew reveal the secrets of initiation; the descent by certain stages of the Divine Spirit into a human individuality, and correspondingly the successive stages by which an individual can reach forth into the cosmos.

It will be explained in the next lecture how a table of descent is also found in the Gospel of Luke; and why, in an age when the Mystery of Christ was imparted only to a few, it should have been demonstrated that there were seventy-seven generations from God and from Adam, down to the Jesus of this Gospel.

Stages of downward penetration of divine nature into a human individuality, and the going forth of this individuality into the cosmos. The spiritual nature of man and the earthly Adam. The superpersonal memory in the blood of the generations. The Essene and Nazarene colonies. The pupils of Jesus ben Pandira: Matthai and Netzer. The two Jesus children

An examination of the descent of Jesus, as given in the Gospel of Luke, shows how the view of the writer of this Gospel is confirmed by the statements made in the last lecture. There it was shown that in the same sense in which an Entity of Divine Force was to permeate the physical and etheric bodies of the Solomon Jesus, so an Entity of Divine Force was also to permeate the astral body and ego of the personality known as the Nathan Jesus of the Luke Gospel. In this Gospel we are clearly told that this Entity of Divine Force is to fulfil itself through the line of heredity streaming in a direct line down through all the generations, from an early stage of human existence before man entered into a physical earthly incarnation. In the Gospel of Luke we find the descent of Jesus is traced back to Adam, and to God. This means that in order to find this divine principle within the astral body and ego of the Nathan Jesus we must go back to man as he was before his descent into physical incarnation; when he still dwelt in the bosom of the Spirit, and may be described as a spiritual being, and as still appertaining to Divinity. All anthroposophical investigation points to the Lemurian Age as that in which man was still in a spiritual sphere, when he had not yet incorporated in the elements of earthly existence. To this period, when man's divine nature was as yet unaffected by Luciferic influences, the Gospel of Luke traces back the lineage of the Jesus of whom it tells.

Those Mysteries which sought to guide their pupils to the initiation already described as ‘the understanding of the mighty secrets of cosmic space,’ leading man to what was super-earthly or rather beyond what man has become through earthly influences, sought to teach man to perceive the world without using the instruments he has acquired since he came under the influence of Lucifer. When a man has freed himself from perception through his physical and etheric bodies, from all that can approach him by earthly means, how does he behold the universe with his clairvoyant perception? This was the great question for the pupils of the Mysteries. Man was naturally in this state before his entrance into earthly incarnation, before he became the ‘earthly Adam,’ using this term in the sense of the Bible and the Gospel of Luke.

There are two ways by which man can reach that which makes him a divine spiritual being; one is the high initiation of the great Mysteries, the other is not realizable at any optional earth period, but was present at an elementary stage of human existence before the descent of divine man into what the Bible calls ‘earthly humanity’ in the Lemurian Age, for Adam means ‘earth man;’ he who is no longer divine, but has clothed himself in the earthly element.

It may be a matter for surprise that in Luke only seventy-seven generations or stages of existence are mentioned; and still more so that in the Gospel of Matthew only forty-two generations from Abraham to Christ are mentioned. Now it can be calculated that with the number of years usually reckoned to a generation, the forty-two could not extend over the period from Christ to Abraham, but it must be remembered that in earlier times, and noticeably in the patriarchal period before Solomon and David, the number of years reckoned to a generation was longer than in subsequent periods. In attempting to fix historical dates for any three generations like those of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the modern reckoning will not suffice; at least two hundred and fifteen years must be allowed for the three generations. This fact is corroborated by occult investigation. The generations were longest in the times from Adam to Abraham, subsequently they were also long, for great age is always ascribed to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, at the time when they begat their heirs. If we are right to-day in reckoning thirty-three years to a generation, the writer of the Gospel of Matthew was correct in reckoning seventy-five to eighty years and even longer to a generation in ancient times. But it is important to note that in the Gospel of Matthew each generation back to Abraham refers to an individual, whereas the names given by Luke to the generations previous to Abraham do not refer to individuals. Here we must recall something that however true, is not easily believed by the materialistic conceptions of to-day.

What is now called memory, or connecting consciousness, does not extend for normal people beyond the early years of childhood. A person can trace his life back to the point where memory ceases; some can remember more of their early childhood than others. Memory to-day is confined to the single personal life—indeed not even the whole of this, for it does not reach back to birth. Considering the very different qualities of soul and of consciousness prevalent in those ancient times with which we are dealing, when a certain state of clairvoyance was normal, it need not seem surprising that memory also was very different from what it is to-day.

Going back to the times before Abraham, and even farther, during Atlantean times, man remembered not only the events of his personal life, but also experiences before birth—he remembered the experiences of his father, grandfather, and previous ancestors. Memory was something that endured in the blood through a long sequence of generations; it was only later that it became restricted to certain periods or to a single life.

In the distant past a name had a quite other significance than what it has to-day. Names in ancient times require a special study—what philologists say of them is incorrect. In former days names were not associated with things and people externally as they are now. A name at that time was something vital, something connected in a living way with the nature of the being or thing named; it was an expression in sound of the inner character of the being. It had to echo in sound the nature of that being. Modern learning is ignorant of this wisdom. The Kritic der Sprache, by Fritz Mauthner, reviews at great length all the modern learning in regard to speech, but omits what throughout the ages has been the essence of speech. Such a book could not have been written in olden times. A name did not then merely signify an individual with his personal life, but it included all that memory could link together, so that a name was used as long as memory endured. ‘Noah,’ for instance, was not a name for one man, it signified what one man remembered of his own life—then of his pre-earthly life, then of the life of his father, grandfather, etc. So long as the threads of memory endured one name was used for a succession of persons. ‘Adam,’ ‘Seth,’ or ‘Enoch’ are names which comprise as many persons as were united through the retention of retrospective recollection. When we are told in ancient times that a certain person was called ‘Enoch,’ it means that in a person, who was the son of someone otherwise designate, a new thread of memory had arisen, which does not go back to previous personalities. This new thread of memory then is not cut off at death, but is carried on, after the death of the first Enoch, from father to son down through the generations until a new memory arises and with it another name. As long as the thread of memory endured, the same name was used. In a family line several persons had but one name; as for example with the name ‘Adam.’ It is in this sense that names are used in the Gospel of Luke. For Luke wishes to explain that the being of power of divine spiritual existence, he who descended into the ego and astral body of the Nathan Jesus, must be traced back to the time of man's first descent into earthly incarnation.

Thus in Luke we have at first the names of separate individuals, but when we go back beyond Abraham, we arrive at a time when memory lasted longer and one name signifies that which, like an ego, united several personalities. This will help to make it clear how the seventy-seven names could really be spread over very long periods—even so far back as to the time when the being whom we describe as the divinely spiritual essence of humanity first incarnated in a physical human body.

The other point in this Gospel is that anyone, who, having passed through the seventy-seven stages of purification in the Mysteries has purged his soul of earthly taint, attains a condition only possible for man to-day when he can live in his astral body and ego free of his body. He can then expand into that from which the Earth itself has come forth—into our whole cosmic system. This does come to pass. Then he has reached the being of power who entered into the astral body and ego of the Nathan Jesus. In the Nathan Jesus it is sought to exemplify what man receives, not through his earthly but through his heavenly conditions.

Thus the Gospel of Luke describes the divine spiritual being who had permeated and impregnated the astral body and ego of the Jesus of whom it speaks. In the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew we have described to us that divine spiritual being of power, who, on one side, had called into existence the inner organ of Jehovah-consciousness in Abraham, and, on the other side, had worked on the physical and etheric bodies, holding together in them a line of inheritance through forty-two generations.

To return to the mission of Jesus ben Pandira, it was he who made known—to a few at least—that forty-two generations after Abraham the Hebrews would have advanced sufficiently to make the incarnation of the individuality of Zarathustra possible in the Solomon branch of the House of David. Such teaching was naturally associated at that time with events in the Mysteries. It was not confined to the Schools of the Essenes, but only among them were pupils to be found who had actually passed through the forty-two stages of development, and who were able to perceive clairvoyantly the nature of the being who was to descend through forty-two stages. For knowledge of this being had to be given to the world. It was the mission of the Essenes to see that among a few at least there should be an understanding of what the Christ would be.

Now let us briefly recall the events connected with the particular course of that human being known as Zarathustra or Zoroaster. Under this name he had given out in early days in the East the mighty teaching that had fitted him for the incarnation described in the Gospel of Matthew. It was he who had inaugurated the Hermetic Civilization in Egypt, and to this end had given up his astral body to Hermes; he also had founded the Mosaic Civilization through the sacrifice of his etheric body, which had been preserved for Moses. Zarathustra himself incarnated later in other astral and etheric bodies. The incarnation in the sixth century B.C. is of special interest, when, as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he had instructed the sages and Magi of Chaldea, and had come in touch with the wisest of the Hebrew pupils of the Mysteries, during the Babylonian Captivity. During the following six centuries, this teaching had permeated the traditions, ceremonies, and culture of the Chaldean Mystery Schools. The name of their great master, Zarathustra, in the form of Zarathos or Nazarathos, had been honoured in the highest degree by generations of pupils in the Mystery Schools of Babylon, Chaldea, and Assyria. They looked forward with longing to the next appearance of their great teacher and leader, for they knew the secret of his reincarnation, and expected it to occur at the end of six hundred years. As the time approached when the blood suitable for this incarnation should be ready, three messengers or wise men, went forth from the East. They knew that the honoured name of Zarathustra would guide them, as a star, to the place of his reincarnation. It was the Being of the great Teacher himself which as a least there should be an understanding of what the Christ would be.

Now let us briefly recall the events connected with the particular course of that human being known as Zarathustra or Zoroaster. Under this name he had given out in early days in the East the mighty teaching that had fitted him for the incarnation described in the Gospel of Matthew. It was he who had inaugurated the Hermetic Civilization in Egypt, and to this end had given up his astral body to Hermes; he also had founded the Mosaic Civilization through the sacrifice of his etheric body, which had been preserved for Moses. Zarathustra himself incarnated later in other astral and etheric bodies. The incarnation in the sixth century B.c. is of special interest, when, as Zarathos or Nazarathos, he had instructed the sages and Magi of Chaldea, and had come in touch with the wisest of the Hebrew pupils of the Mysteries, during the Babylonian Captivity. During the following six centuries, this teaching had permeated the traditions, ceremonies, and culture of the Chaldean Mystery Schools. The name of their great master, Zarathustra, in the form of Zarathos or Nazarathos, had been honoured in the highest degree by generations of pupils in the Mystery Schools of Babylon, Chaldea, and Assyria. They looked forward with longing to the next appearance of their great teacher and leader, for they knew the secret of his reincarnation, and expected it to occur at the end of six hundred years. As the time approached when the blood suitable for this incarnation should be ready, three messengers or wise men, went forth from the East. They knew that the honoured name of Zarathustra would guide them, as a star, to the place of his reincarnation. It was the Being of the great Teacher himself which as a ‘star’ guided the three Magi to the birthplace of Jesus, as is told in the Gospel of Matthew.

Even external philology confirms the fact that the word ‘star’ was used in olden times to describe the human individuality. It is not only through the revelations of spiritual science, which speaks more clearly than other sources of knowledge, that we learn that the Magi followed the ‘Golden Star,’ Zoroaster, to the place where he was to reincarnate, but by the customary use of the word ‘star’ for the higher human individuality it is clearly revealed that in the star which the wise men followed we have to understand Zarathustra himself.

Six hundred years before our era the Magi of the East were closely associated with the individual who incarnated as the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew. He himself led the Magi. They followed in his track.

The secret of the coming incarnation of Zarathustra was known in the Chaldean Mysteries; but the secret concerning the blood of the Hebrew people which when the time was ripe was to be prepared for the new bodily-nature of Zarathustra, was taught by those who in the Essene initiation had passed through forty-two stages of development.

There were therefore two sources from which this knowledge came. From the side of Zarathustra, teaching was given by the Chaldean Initiates; they knew of the individuality who was to incarnate in the Jewish race from the external side, that of the body and the preparation of the blood, teaching came from initiates among the Essenes. This teaching was given out for more than a hundred years in the School of the Essenes, the teaching of the coming of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, who in his fulness would satisfy all the needs of which I have spoken, and still others which we will now try to explain.

A pupil of the Essene Mystery Schools, who, after long training, had completed the forty-two stages of initiation, was able to perceive the mysteries of the physical and etheric body. The individual who was to be born, who was to incarnate in this special blood, came from on high, already possessing faculties which were only attained by the Essene after the long and difficult trials of his training. Concerning such a being, one must say, ‘From the beginning he had powers capable of bringing the seed that was in him to fruition.’ ‘They were born with him,’ the Essenes said. That which was fostered among them by means of exercises and purification of the soul was in fact the continuation of a kind of occult training that had existed among the Jews from the earliest days. There had always been those among them who were called Nazarenes. Even before the time of the Therapeutæ and Essenes certain individuals had used special methods for the development of their soul and body, methods still necessary to-day in certain connections when anyone wishes to hasten his soul development. The Nazarenes were especially careful to abstain entirely from meat and wine. This made a certain facility possible—for it is a fact that the consumption of meat can be a hindrance in the path when striving for spiritual development. Without implying any propaganda on behalf of vegetarianism, it is a fact that abstention from meat makes everything easier, for in that case the soul increases in strength and in power of endurance, and is stronger to overcome the oppositions and hindrances arising from the physical and etheric bodies. Capacities for endurance increase by abstaining from flesh though it is not such abstinence alone, but above all by strengthening his soul. It is merely the physical body that is changed by this abstinence; but when certain qualities are absent which should from the soul's side be present, there is no particular object in avoiding meat. All this was included in the teaching of the Nazarenes and was practised by the Essenes in a much stricter form; in particular they cultivated the strictest abstinence from meat. By this, and the strict training I have referred to, a man was able to enhance his memory comparatively quickly; he learnt to extend it over the period of forty-two generations, and he thus acquired the power to read the secrets of the Akashic-Record. He was then given a special name. He was called a ‘bud,’ a bud on the tree of the race, a bud that had endured throughout many generations. Such a man was not in any way isolated from the tree of humanity, but was conscious of his connection with the rest of mankind. He differed from those who severed themselves from the tree, and whose memory had shrunk within a single personality. The special name given to such a man, among the sect of the Essenes, signified ‘a living branch,’ not a severed branch. All such men felt themselves consciously in the line of descent, a part of the tree of the human race. The Essene who had accomplished this and who had completed the forty-two stages of initiation was described as a ‘Netzer.’

Among the class of Netzer there was a special and faithful pupil of Jesus ben Pandira. Among his pupils were five whom he had himself trained; each of these had taken up a special branch of the great general teaching of Jesus ben Pandira, which he then developed further.

The names of these pupils were Mathai, Nakai, Netzer (because he belonged especially to the Netzer class), Boni, and Thona. Occult research reveals the fact that subsequent to the death of Jesus ben Pandira, the teaching concerning the preparation of the blood of the race for the advent of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew was particularly the work of Mathai. The teaching concerning the qualities of the inner nature of the soul which was associated with the ancient Nazarene teaching and also with the later Netzerism, was cultivated and spread by Netzer. This pupil was in particular chosen to be the founder of a little colony. Many such colonies existed in Palestine, in each of which some special branch of the Essene teaching was cultivated, and Netzer's teaching was fostered more especially in a little colony, which led a secret existence in a little place named in the Bible, Nazareth or Netzereth.

In this little colony dwelt those who cultivated in fairly strict secrecy the ancient Nazarene teaching. And here, after the events shortly to be dealt with—the flight into Egypt and the return—nothing was more natural than that the Jesus of the Matthew Gospel should be nurtured in the atmosphere of Netzerism. This is referred to in the words of the Gospel when after the return from Egypt Jesus was taken to Nazareth ‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets He shall become a Nazarene.’

Translators, unaware of the real meaning of this phrase, have dealt with it in various ways. In reality it signifies the existence at Nazareth of a colony of Essenes among whom the early years of Jesus were to be passed.

All the facts described in the first part of the Gospel of Matthew lead back to the mysteries taught by Jesus ben Pandira, which subsequently were spread abroad by his pupil Mathai, and indeed the first mysteries of this Gospel point to Mathai. In all that springs from this side which is so characteristic of the Gospel of Matthew we find teaching concerning the preparation for the physical and etheric bodies of the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew, though naturally during the forty-two generations there were also influences affecting the astral body.

When it is stated that the first fourteen generations are especially concerned with the physical body, the second fourteen with the etheric, and the third period of fourteen, that following the Babylonian Captivity with the astral body, it must be remembered that a physical and etheric body carefully prepared in this way, could only be used by that mighty individuality Zarathustra.

Now recall the oft-repeated facts of the development of a single personality; how the physical body evolves in the first seven years; the etheric in the next seven, between the change of teeth and puberty; and the astral only begins its free development at the age of fourteen. The development of the physical body and etheric body as these passed down through the generations from Abraham, was destined to come to an end, and entered on a new existence when it became the dwelling-place of Zarathustra. But when he had completed the development of the etheric body, that which had been prepared for him no longer sufficed, and he had then to proceed to the development of the astral body. Mighty and amazing events brought this to pass, events which if we have no understanding of them make it impossible for us to grasp the full meaning of the great Mystery of Jesus Christ.

The individuality of Zarathustra evolved during boyhood until his twelfth year, within the physical and etheric body of that Jesus of whom the Gospel of Matthew speaks—for as regards this being and on account of the climate, the period, which in our part of the world occurs about the fourteenth or fifteenth year, was reached earlier. By his twelfth year he had attained everything it was possible to attain in the physical and etheric body fittingly prepared within the line of Solomon. The individuality of Zarathustra did then actually forsake the physical and etheric body described in the Gospel of Matthew and passed over into the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. In the cycle of lectures on the Gospel of Luke the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple is explained. There we learn what it meant when the child Jesus was suddenly confronted by his parents who could in no way understand how he had become so changed. This change meant that the entrance of the individuality of Zarathustra into his inner being had taken place; until then this Zarathustra-individuality had developed within the physical and etheric sheaths of the Solomon Jesus.

Such things actually come to pass in life, incredible though they may seem to the untrained and materialistic modern mind. The passing over of an individuality from one body to another does occur. Such a transition occurred when the Zarathustra-individuality, forsaking its original body, passed over into that of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, whose astral body and ego-bearer had been specially prepared.

From his twelfth year Zarathustra continued his development in the uniquely prepared astral body and ego of the Jesus of the line of Nathan. This is told in such an imposing way in the Gospel of Luke—the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus sitting in the temple among the Scribes, who were astounded at his words. How was this possible to the Jesus of the Nathan line? He was able to speak thus because the individuality of Zarathustra had entered him. Through that twelve-year-old boy who had been brought to Jerusalem by his parents, Zarathustra had not till then spoken. Hence the change in him was so great that his parents failed to recognize him as he sat among the scribes.

Thus we have two sets of parents, each named Joseph and Mary.¹ And there were two children, each named Jesus; the one we read of in the Gospel of Matthew is the Jesus of the Solomon line of the house of David; the other spoken of in the Gospel of Luke is the Jesus of the Nathan line, and is the son of quite other parents. The two boys grew up near to each other until their twelfth year. You can find this in the Gospels. What is related there is quite correct, but as long as it was undesirable for people to experience the truth, or as long as people did not desire the truth, it was withheld. The Gospels speak the truth we have but to learn to understand them aright.

The Nathan Jesus developed with a strongly developed inward nature. While showing little aptitude for the acquisition of external wisdom, he possessed depth of soul and capacity for love in boundless measure, for dwelling in his etheric body was that force which had come down from a time before man's descent into earthly incarnation, when as yet he led a divine existence. Divinity dwelt in him in a boundless capacity for love. This Jesus of the Nathan line was little fitted for the acquisition of that which men gain in the course of incarnation in a physical body, but he was filled with an infinite warmth of love as regards his soul and inner being. The inward trend of the boy's nature was so marked that those who had understanding of such things tell of something that was brought about through this. What is otherwise only evoked in man by external means was present in a certain sense in the child Jesus of the Gospel of Luke from the beginning. Immediately after his birth he spoke certain words which were comprehensible to his surroundings. Thus this Jesus was mighty in all inward matters though unskilled as regards what is gained by passing through repeated earthly incarnations.

What wonder that the parents were greatly amazed when they suddenly discovered in such a physical nature, a boy filled with great external wisdom that could only be gained by outward means. Such a sudden and amazing change was possible because at that moment the individuality of Zarathustra—the Jesus of the line of Solomon—passed over into the Jesus of the line of Nathan. It was Zarathustra who spoke from the boy at the moment when his parents sought him in the Temple.

Zarathustra had acquired the highest faculties possible to acquire through a physical and etheric body. He had to use the physical instruments prepared in the Solomon line of inheritance, for in them were great and very highly developed forces. He took of this physical nature as much as he could make his own, and blended it with the nature that sprang from the inner force of the Luke Jesus, which had its origin before man's entrance into earthly incarnation. These two natures were now joined in one. Henceforward we have only one being before us.

Though it may seem superfluous, we have our attention now directed to something else; the parents of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke did not only note an exceptional change in him, but there was also an outward change, for why is it expressly stated that after the child Jesus had been found among the learned Scribes in the Temple ‘He went down with them to Nazareth. ... And Jesus increased in outward beauty of form, in noble habits, and in wisdom.’ Why are these three attributes mentioned? Because now that the Zarathustra individuality had entered into him these were the attributes he could make more particularly his own.

I am quite aware that these words are usually translated ‘and Jesus increased in wisdom, age (stature in the English version), and in favour with God and man.’ Do we require a Gospel to tell us that a twelve-year-old boy increased in age? But in Weizeker's translation we have the words: ‘and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.’ This, however, is not the meaning; the real meaning is, that an individuality is now in the Nathan Jesus, who is not, as formerly, only a being of inward feeling unable to express itself outwardly, but, because it has now assumed a complete physical body, it has also passed on into external physical excellence. At the same time those qualities that especially concerned the etheric body—the habits acquired and cultivated by means of the etheric body—were not to be found previously in the Nathan Jesus. In him the seed of a mighty capacity for love was apparent which could now be developed further, but this attribute sprang up spontaneously in him and could not become fixed as habits are. But once the Zarathustra individuality, which possessed the powers of an evolved physical and etheric body, was present, it was possible for external habits to reveal themselves and to imprint themselves on the etheric body. This was the second attribute in which the child Jesus increased.

Thirdly, Jesus increased in wisdom. This is more easily understood. The Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was not wise; he was to a high degree a being capable of love. The entrance into him of the Zarathustra individuality meant an increase in wisdom.

As was explained in the lectures on the Gospel of Luke, it may easily happen that when an individuality has forsaken a person, and only three members, the physical body, and the etheric body and astral body are left, this person may continue to live for a time. That part of the Solomon Jesus, however, which was left behind soon dwindled away and died. This means that the Jesus child of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew died comparatively soon after his twelfth year. At first there were two boys; later the two became one.

Ancient records often contain astounding things which we should try to understand; yet this is only possible through a comprehension of the real facts to which they refer. The intimate way in which these two boys were blended into one may be left for later consideration one reference, however, may be permitted here.

In the so-called ‘Egyptian Gospel,’ which even in the first centuries was regarded as heretical, a noteworthy sentence occurs, for even in Christian circles no one wanted to hear the truth, nor wished that it should come to light. In this document which has endured as a kind of apocryphal Gospel, we find it said: ‘that salvation would come to the world when the two had become one and the outer become as the inner.’

This sentence expresses exactly the facts I have explained as the result of occult investigation. Salvation depends on the two becoming one. The two became one when in his twelfth year the individuality of Zarathustra passed over into the Nathan Jesus, and what was inward became external. The soul force of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was most powerfully inward, but this inward force became outward when the Zarathustra individuality—whose outward forces had been developed to a high degree in the physical body and etheric body of the Solomon Jesus—entered into this inward nature, permeating it with his highly evolved physical and etheric nature. Thus a power entered the physical and etheric body of the Nathan Jesus, and what was external became an expression of his inwardness—inwardness that was his before the individuality of the Solomon Jesus passed into him. Thus the two became one.

We have now followed Zarathustra from his birth as the Jesus child of the Gospel of Matthew to his twelfth year when he left his original body and took on the bodily sheath of the Nathan Jesus. From this time onwards the physical nature of the Nathan Jesus was developed by Zarathustra to such a high degree of perfection that he was able at a certain climax of his existence to sacrifice his three bodies for acceptance by Him Whom we call the Christ.

• 1. Many people were so named at that time; to deduce anything from the names ‘Joseph’ and ‘Mary,’ as names are understood to-day, is denied by all true investigation.

The law concerning the stages of the perfecting of human qualities (the Eight-fold path). Nature of Initiation in pre-Christian Mysteries. Descent into the physical body and expansion into the Macrocosm. The dangers connected with this. The twelve helpers of the Hierophant. The Christ-event the beginning of freedom. Christ the model—the fulfilment—of the great Initiation

Our endeavour in these lectures is to explain the significance of the Christ Event in human evolution. The main outlines of that Event will be placed before your souls to-day; the details will be filled in subsequently. An understanding of one of the fundamental laws of human evolution, already described at Basle in the course of lectures on the Gospel of St. Luke, is necessary to this outline: the law, that all through human development new faculties are ever emerging and attaining ever higher degrees of perfection. This fact emerges in an external way when we look back into the short periods of time covered by ordinary history when certain human faculties had not yet developed. Throughout the ages we can trace the development of new faculties in man which have finally brought about our present civilization; but before any entirely new faculty can appear, spread, and in due course become the property of all, special conditions are necessary; it is necessary that this faculty should appear somewhere for the first time in a quite special way.

In the earlier cycle on the Gospel of St. Luke I drew your attention to the ‘eight-fold path’ which men can follow who hold to the teaching which flowed into human evolution through Gautama Buddha. This is usually given as: right opinions, right judgments, right speech, right actions, right standards, right habits, right memories, and right contemplations. These are qualities of the human soul. It may be said: before Gautama Buddha lived, human nature lacked the power to develop such faculties, but since then it has advanced sufficiently to make the gradual development of these qualities of the eight-fold path possible as faculties of man's inner being. Before Gautama Buddha lived on earth in his Buddha incarnation, the independent development of these qualities was not possible. In order that they might gradually be developed, a being like Gautama Buddha had to come in the flesh to give the necessary impulse so that in the course of hundreds and thousands of years they might develop independently in mankind. This fact must be emphasized. In the lectures already referred to, I said that in a certain number of people these faculties are already developed, and when this number has sufficiently increased the earth will be ripe for the reception of the next Buddha, the Maitreya Buddha, who at the present time is a Bodhisattva. Enclosed between these two events lies the period during which a sufficient number of men will have acquired the higher intellectual, moral, and emotional qualities of the eight-fold path. It was, however, necessary at the birth of this period, that once, and for the first time, the impulse whereby all the qualities of the eight-fold path could be developed, should find expression in a single exalted individual, in the personality of Gautama Buddha. Such is the law of human evolution. A faculty destined for development in the whole human race must, in the first place, be fully evolved in a single person; then by slow degrees, throughout the ages, maybe thousands of years, these faculties pass into mankind as a whole.

But that which is to enter humanity through the Christ Event will not be confined within some five thousand years—the period of the influx of the Buddha impulse—it will come to life and continue working as a special faculty to the very end of our earthly evolution. But what is it that actually entered through the Christ Event, in a way similar to what entered through the Buddha, but in an infinitely greater and more exalted manner?

It can be described as follows: That which in pre-Christian times could only draw near to man through the Mysteries, can, since the Christ Event, become to some extent a common attribute of human nature, and this possibility will increase. To comprehend this, an understanding of the nature of these ancient Mysteries and pre-Christian initiations is necessary.

Initiation varied among the different peoples in different parts of the globe, as indeed it has varied in post-Atlantean times. One part of initiation would belong to one nation, another to another. It was unnecessary that every people should possess every form of initiation. Souls by reincarnating successively in different peoples, gained experience of the various initiations. Initiation is the power of looking into the spiritual world; this is not revealed through physical perception or through the external understanding dependent on the instrument of the physical body.

In ordinary life, twice in every twenty-four hours, a man has to be, so to say, where the Initiate also is; but the Initiate is conscious of his surroundings, ordinary man is unconscious of them. In twenty-four hours the life of man alternates between sleeping and waking conditions of consciousness. The fact of the withdrawal of the astral body and ego from the physical and etheric bodies during sleep is familiar to you. The astral nature and the ego on expanding into the more immediate universe, derive thence the forces needed during waking life. From the time he falls asleep until he wakes man is actually poured forth into the surrounding world. He is, however, ignorant of this, for the moment he falls asleep his consciousness is extinguished. During sleep he actually lives in the macrocosm.

Initiation consists in man's learning to partake consciously in this experience, to slip consciously into the existence in which our earth is united with other heavenly bodies. This is the essence of initiation into the macrocosm or Great World.

If a man were to fall asleep and behold all unprepared that world into which he enters, then through the mighty, overwhelming impression made upon him, he would be as one who with unprotected eyes attempts to gaze on the Sun. He would suffer a cosmic blinding that would bring death to his soul. All initiation is for the purpose of enabling man to enter the macrocosm, not unprepared, but with organs strengthened and ready to withstand the shock. Blindness and confusion would otherwise occur while sojourning in the macrocosm, because existence there is so far removed from that to which man is accustomed.

It is usual for man to regard everything in the sense world from one aspect only; anything that approaches him in a sense contrary to this seems false and discordant. As long as he holds the opinion that everything should conform to this view, a view quite natural on the physical plane, the seeker for initiation into the cosmos could never feel at ease there. Man lives within his narrow snail's shell of the sense-world, concentrated on one point of view from which he judges every circumstance. What harmonizes with the opinions he has formed he regards as true; all else he considers false. But when he passes through initiation man must expand into the macrocosm. Suppose he were only to expand in one direction, his experience would be limited to that direction, and he would be ignorant of everything else; but expansion in one direction into the macrocosm and with one point of view is impossible. Man cannot help expanding in all directions. The very fact of passing out into the cosmos is an expansion, an enlarging of himself into the macrocosm. It is impossible to have only one point of view there. He must be able to see the world not only from one point—from himself looking back—but also from a second, a third, and many other points of view. The seeker must develop flexibility of outlook, and be able to see things from every side. This does not imply that an infinity of conditions has to be reckoned with, for their number is limited. Theoretically, an infinite number of points of view is possible, but actually, twelve are sufficient. These are symbolized in the star-language of the Mystery schools by the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. Man must not reach out only towards Cancer, for instance, but must view the world from all twelve points of the Zodiacal Circle. It is vain to seek agreement by means of abstract words suited to the understanding; the first step towards real agreement here on earth will be taken when the world is viewed from many different aspects.

Parenthetically it may be stated that the great difficulty in all world movements based on occult truths is that the ordinary habits of life are so apt to be carried over into them. When a man is constrained to communicate truths which are the results of super-sensible investigation, it is necessary, even when describing them exoterically, to observe the rule of doing so from different points of view. Those who have watched our movement attentively for some years must have noticed that we have always been striving to describe things not from one aspect but from many. Hence judgments formed in accordance with the usage of the physical plane discover contradictions here and there, for a matter seen from one aspect may appear very different when viewed from another. In a spiritually scientific movement it is necessary to emphasize from the beginning, that when a statement made on one occasion apparently contradicts another given previously, the matter needs careful consideration, each being correct in its own setting. In order to avoid such an unjustified spirit of contradiction among ourselves, we take the course of characterizing things from different sides. Those who attended the lectures given at Munich last year on ‘The Children of Lucifer and the Brethren of Christ’ heard of far-reaching cosmic mysteries from the standpoint of Oriental philosophy. It is therefore necessary for the seeker who ventures on the path leading into the cosmos to acquire adaptability of outlook, otherwise he will be lost in a labyrinth. For though man may adapt himself to the world, the world does not adapt itself to him. While the prejudiced man progresses only in one direction, remaining fixed at one standpoint, the world, ignoring him, moves on, and he is left behind in evolution. In the imagery of the stars, a man may desire to advance only in the direction of Aries and to remain with the surrounding world in that constellation, but the world moves on and presents to him the constellation of Pisces. Such a man will see what comes from Pisces as an experience of Aries; confusion results, and so he finds himself in a labyrinth. To find a way through the labyrinth of the macrocosm, not one point of view but twelve are required.

We have here described one way by which a man may pass out into the Cosmos. But there is another way by which a man may enter into the divine spiritual world without being aware of it, namely, during the other portion of the twenty-four hours. When a man awakes from sleep he plunges down into his physical and etheric bodies, but quite unconsciously, for his perceptions connect him immediately with the external world. Were he to descend consciously into his bodies, he would perceive something quite different. During sleep he is preserved from conscious participation in the life of the macrocosm (for which he is unprepared), and he is preserved from entering consciously into the life of the physical and etheric bodies through his perceptive faculties being immediately directed to the world surrounding him. The danger attending the conscious experiencing of this physical world is somewhat different from the confusion and blindness associated with a view of the other.

When a man enters without preparation into the nature of his physical and etheric being, identifying himself with it, the purpose for which these bodies were given him is developed to an extraordinary degree. That purpose is the development of ego-consciousness. The ego enters the world of the physical and etheric body unprepared, and impure. Were this to happen consciously instead of unconsciously, as is usual, the resulting mystic preception would exclude inner truth, and present illusion to him. Because the eye of man's inner being is then opened, he is united to all the egoistic wishes and desires, all the depravity within him. Ordinarily this does not happen, for during waking hours, with his attention directed to the physical world, he does not contact what may evolve out of his own inner nature.

Other lectures have referred to the experiences of Christian martyrs and saints on first touching and plunging into their own nature. These experiences illustrate the statements just made. Through the withdrawal of outer perception and the stimulation of the inner, the Christian saints were able to speak of the temptations and delusions that took possession of them. The descriptions they give are in strict accordance with truth. It is therefore wonderfully instructive to study the lives of the saints from this point of view; to see how the passions, emotions and desires implanted in man work—things from which he is preserved in ordinary life.

By sinking down into his inner being, by being compressed within his ego, and concentrated into one point, by desiring to be nothing else than an ego—this is what renders man incapable of experiencing anything except the satisfaction of his own wishes and desires. The evil in him can then lay hold of his ego.

We thus find that to seek to expand into the cosmos unprepared, means the danger of cosmic blinding; on the other hand to plunge into one's own etheric and physical bodies unprepared, is to be cramped, confined, and contracted entirely within oneself. There is, however, yet another side of initiation which was cultivated by certain other peoples. While expansion into the cosmos was followed more especially by the Aryan and Northern peoples, the other form was largely practised among the Egyptians. There is also this initiation where man draws near to Divinity by following the more inward path and an intensification of the inner life, by sinking within his own being, and striving to learn how divine activity works there.

In the days of the ancient Mysteries mankind as a whole was not sufficiently advanced for initiation, whether directed outwards to the macrocosm or inwards to a man's own self—the microcosm, for it to attain that high point where a man could be left entirely to himself. When for instance, an Egyptian initiation was being carried out the neophyte was inducted into the powers of his physical and etheric bodies so that he should experience with full consciousness what took place there. Dreadful passions and emotions would then arise from every side of his astral nature; demoniacal influences would proceed from him. Hence in these Mysteries the hierophant had to be assisted by helpers who drew these evils towards themselves and through the power of their own nature turned them aside. The Initiator had to be assisted by twelve helpers who received the expelled demons into themselves. Thus in ancient initiation a man was never entirely left to himself; for what was necessarily developed through his sinking into the physical and etheric was only possible when he was surrounded by the twelve helpers who accepted and overcame the demons.

In the northern Mysteries, where similar results were brought about by expansion into the macrocosm, twelve servers were required by the Initiator. They surrendered their forces to the would-be initiate, enabling him to develop the necessary methods of thought and feeling that could guide him through the labyrinth of the macrocosm.

Initiation where a man was dependent on those who assisted the Initiator, and where, because of this help he was safe from the danger of demons, was destined to be gradually replaced by one in which the novice had to rely more on himself. In this case he was given certain instructions which he had to follow; the gradual attainment of initiation was thus left more to the man himself. At the present time man is not far advanced upon this path; but by degrees an independent faculty will develop in humanity. By means of this faculty he will be able without any assistance, either to ascend to the macrocosm or descend into the microcosm. He will thus be able to pass as a free being through both forms of initiation.

The Christ Event took place in order that this might come to pass. This Event means for man the starting point from which, with complete independence, he can either sink inwards into the physical and etheric body or expand outwards into the macrocosm. Both this descent and this expansion had to be fully carried out once and for all time by a Being of a most exalted nature—Christ Jesus. The essence of the Event of Christ is: That this all comprising nature of the Christ accomplished ‘in anticipation’ for all mankind what will now be possible of achievement by a sufficient number of human beings at least, in the course of earthly evolution.

What actually did take place through the Christ Event?

On one hand the Christ Being had himself to descend into a physical and etheric body, and because the physical and etheric body of one human Being had been so sanctified that the Christ could descend into it (which happened only once), an impulse so great was given to human evolution that the possibility was given to every human being who sought it, of experiencing the descent into the physical and etheric body as a free agent. For this the Christ came down to earth, and accomplished what had never been accomplished before. This is something quite different from what was attained in the Mysteries through the co-operation of helpers. In the Mysteries man could descend into the secrets of the physical and etheric bodies, and could ascend to those of the macrocosm, but only when not really living within the physical body. He certainly could penetrate to the secrets of the physical body, but not when in it, only when quite free from it. On returning, he brought back into the physical body a remembrance of his experiences, but this was a remembrance, not a participation when in the physical body.

The Christ Event was to change all this radically, and it did so change it. Before this Event there never had been a physical and etheric body in existence capable of experiencing complete inner penetration by the ego. Up till then no human ego had really taken possession of a physical and etheric body. This occurred for the first time through the Deed of Christ.

From Him originated also that other outpouring, whereby a Being, though infinitely exalted above humanity, yet united Himself with human nature, and poured Himself into the macrocosm without external aid solely through the force of his own Ego. This was only possible through the Christ. Only through Him did it become possible for man to acquire the faculties by which he could gradually penetrate into the macrocosm, with complete freedom. These are the two main pillars that support both the Gospel of Matthew, and that of Luke. How was this?

We know that Zarathustra was the great teacher of Asia in far past post-Atlantean ages, that he subsequently incarnated as Zarathos or Nazarathos, and again later as the child Jesus of the house of David, who sprang from the Solomon line of this house, as described in the Gospel of Matthew. For twelve years, as we have seen, this individuality developed within the child Jesus every faculty it was possible for him to develop in the physical and etheric instruments of a member of the house of Solomon. The Zarathustra individuality then forsook this child and entered the other Jesus, the child of the Gospel of Luke, who was descended from the Nathan branch of the house of David, and was brought up in Nazareth, close to the other Jesus, the child of whom the Gospel of Matthew tells. This event took place at the moment described in the Gospel of Luke when Jesus was missing during the festival, and was later discovered in the Temple. While the Solomon Jesus died shortly after this, Zarathustra continued to live in the Jesus of whom St. Luke tells, until his thirtieth year, and during this time he developed all the qualities it had been possible to acquire through the instrumentality of the carefully prepared physical and etheric body of the Solomon Jesus on the one hand, and further, through having added to these what could be acquired through that very special astral body and ego-bearer belonging to the Nathan Jesus of the Gospel of Luke. Thus Zarathustra evolved within the body of this Jesus up to his thirtieth year. He had then advanced so far in this body with the qualities he had acquired, that he was able to make a third great sacrifice—the sacrifice of the physical body, which then for three years became the body of the Christ Being. Thousands of years before, the Zarathustra individuality had sacrificed his etheric and astral bodies to Moses and Hermes; he now sacrificed his physical body to Christ; that is, he forsook this physical sheath with everything of an etheric and astral nature remaining in it. What had formerly been occupied by the Zarathustra individuality was now occupied by a being of unique nature, the fountain head of all the wisdom of the mighty wisdom-teachers of the world: by the Christ.

This is the event presented to us at the baptism by John in Jordan, the event whose all-embracing nature and infinite greatness is revealed in one Gospel in the words—‘Thou art my well-beloved Son, in Whom I behold Myself, in Whom I am confronted by Myself,’ which should not be translated by the trivial words: ‘In Whom I am well pleased.’ In other Gospels it is even given as: ‘Thou are my well-beloved Son, this day I have begotten thee!’ These words clearly show that we are here concerned with a birth, the birth of Christ in the sheaths first prepared and then offered up by Zarathustra. At the moment of the baptism by John, the Being of Christ passed into the human sheaths prepared by Zarathustra; hence we are now speaking of the rebirth of these three sheaths, since they were permeated by the substance of Christ. The baptism by John is the rebirth of the sheaths acquired by Zarathustra and the birth of Christ on earth. Christ was now within a human body, a body certainly prepared in an unique manner, yet a human body like that of other men however less perfect these may be.

Christ, the most exalted individuality who can be united with the earth, had now entered a human body. If He was to be an example to all mankind, if He was to go through the great experience of complete initiation, He would have to experience this from both sides—the descent into the physical and etheric body, the microcosm, and the ascent into the macrocosm. Christ did pass through both these experiences as an example for mankind. We must, however, realize, as is necessary from the very nature of the Christ Event, that in considering these events, that is His descent into a physical and etheric body, the Christ was proof against the temptations which certainly assailed Him, but which rebounded from Him; and we must also realize that He was quite untouched by those dangers which affect ordinary humanity when seeking to expand into the macrocosm.

The Gospel of Matthew now tells how after the baptism of John, the Christ Being actually descended into the physical and etheric bodies. The account of this is found in the story of the temptation. We can see how the details of these scenes reproduce in every particular the experiences a man passes through when he descends into his physical and etheric bodies. In the descent of the Christ into a human physical and etheric body we see the compression of the human ego lived through before our eyes, and we can say This is true; all this can happen to us! If we remember Christ and desire to become like unto Him, we can acquire power to face all these things, and to conquer all that on such occasions emerges from our physical and etheric bodies.

The scene of the Temptation might be called the first great outstanding event of the Gospel of Matthew. It reproduces one side of initiation, the descent into the physical body and etheric body. The other side of initiation, the expansion into the macrocosm, is also described in such a way that we are indeed shown how the Christ endured this expansion absolutely in accordance with His human nature. I should like to mention here an obvious objection often made, namely: If Christ were indeed such a high Being, why had He to endure all this? Why had He to descend into a physical and etheric body? Why, like men, had He to go forth and expand into the macrocosm? What the Christ did was not done for Himself, but for humanity. In higher spheres and with the substances of these higher spheres, beings of a like nature to Christ could do this, but never before had it been done in a human physical and etheric body, for never before had a human body been permeated by the Christ Being.

Divine substances had before this gone forth into space, but never that which lives in man. Christ alone could take this human nature into Himself and pour it forth into space. This had to be done for the first time by a God in human nature!

And this second great event, the setting up, so to say, of the second pillar of the Gospel of Matthew, is recounted when we are shown how the second side of initiation, expansion to the sun and stars, was really accomplished by Christ while in His human nature. For this He had first to be anointed—anointed as another man would be, that he might be purified and sanctified, so as to be proof against what would approach Him from the physical world. Here we see how the anointing, which played a part in the ancient Mysteries, is again met with, this time on a higher level in the course of history, for formerly anointings were confined to the temples. We see how at the Last Supper the Christ gives expression to this ‘going forth into the universe,’ not only ‘existence within Himself’ when in the words, ‘I am the Bread,’ He tells those around Him that He feels Himself to be a part of what is expressed in the solid substance of the earth and likewise in all that is fluid. Expression is given to this conscious expansion into the macrocosm as distinct from the unconscious expansion of man during sleep, and all that is experienced by man as a blinding, is expressed in the monumental words, ‘My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.’

Christ Jesus actually felt what is experienced by man as the pains of death, of injury, or blinding. In the scene at Gethsemane He experienced what can be described as the soul revealing its own agony when forsaken by the physical body. In other words it is what is felt by the soul on leaving the body and expanding into the universe. All that follows is really an account of expansion into the macrocosm: The Crucifixion, and what is represented by the Burial, all these were formerly enacted in the Mysteries. This is the other pillar of the Gospel—the living out into the macrocosm.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us clearly that Christ Jesus lived in a physical body, which later hung upon the Cross. He was concentrated within this one point in space; but now He expands into the whole cosmos, and those who would seek Him then must do so no longer in this physical body, but they would have to seek Him clairvoyantly in the Spirit; the Spirit which fills all space.

After the Christ had actually accomplished that which formerly, and only with help from outside, was accomplished during three and a half days in the Mysteries; after He had done that which awakened so much opposition among the Jews, by saying that if they destroyed the Temple He would restore it again in three days (thus clearly referring to initiation into the macrocosm, formerly accomplished in three days), He further tells them that when this is fulfilled He would no longer be found where the Being of Christ Jesus now was, enclosed within a physical body, but that He would have to be sought in the Spirit permeating Universal Space. This is usually translated as follows (and even through the feebleness of the translation the full glory of the new age that was approaching can be seen): After this ye will have to look for the Being who is to be born out of human evolution, at the right hand of Power, and He will appear to you out of the clouds. It is there we must seek the Christ, the Christ Who is poured forth into the world as a prototype of the great initiation which man passes through on forsaking his body to expand into the macrocosm.

Herein we have the beginning and the end of the actual life of Christ. It begins with the birth of Christ, at the baptism in the Jordan, into that body of which we have spoken. It begins with one side of initiation, the descent into the physical and etheric bodies, as set forth in the story of the Temptation, and it ends with the other side of initiation: the expansion into the macrocosm. This expansion begins with the scene of the Last Supper, is continued in that of the Scourging, the Crowning with Thorns, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection.

Between these two points lie all the events with which the Gospel of Matthew is concerned; so far we have but sketched the outline of these events, which will be amplified in subsequent lectures.

The bringing forth of the secrets of the Mysteries into the external world through the historic Christ-event. The Kingdom of Malchut and the Kingdoms of Heaven. The nature of the Ego in the Kingdom

The raising of the two sides of initiation to the heights of a world-historical transaction comprises what is most essential for us in the Christ Event.

In the form of initiation found more especially in the Mysteries and Sanctuaries of Egypt, a man experienced his daily awakening, that is, the descent into his physical and etheric sheaths, so that his perceptive organs were directed, not to his physical environment but to the occurrences within these bodies. Those who were initiated according to this ancient method, in which they received guidance and help to shield them from its inherent dangers, became in a certain sense, different men. They were able, during the act of initiation at least, to behold the spiritual world, to see in the first place those spiritual forces and beings which are associated with our physical and etheric bodies.

Were we to describe the initiation of the Essenes from this point of view, we should have to say that after passing through the forty-two stages, the Essene would arrive at a more intimate knowledge of his true inner being, his own ego-nature, and of everything that made him capable of spiritual perception through the external organs acquired by inheritance; he would be led beyond the forty-two stages to that divinely spiritual Being who, as Jahve or Jehovah, had brought about the formation of the special organ first possessed by Abraham, as I have already explained. In spirit he would recognize in this organ what was essential to the age in which he lived; he would look back to the composition of his inner being and see it as the product of Divinity; in this form of initiation his attention was, therefore, not ¹ directed to knowledge concerning man's own inner nature.

The danger resulting from a man entering his inner being unprepared, was described in general terms in the last lecture. I showed how egoism was then aroused in him so that he said: ‘I will summon all my powers, all my egoistic passions and emotions, all that is antagonistic to spiritual knowledge; I will marshal these within me so as to become one with them; in this way I will act, perceive, and feel, only from out my own egoistic inner being.’ Descent into a man's own inner being brings with it the danger of excessive egoism. It is this which as a special kind of illusion again and again approaches those who seek entrance into their inner being by means of esoteric development. In such cases many forms of egoism become apparent in people which they do not as a rule recognize to be egoism. They believe it to be anything rather than egoism. There are many who would fain see into the higher worlds but they lack the will to endure the training. They find it most uncomfortable to watch the deeply-rooted characteristics of human nature rising within them. They would like to reach the spiritual world without this eruption of egoism. They fail to realize that the dissatisfaction felt towards an experience that is quite in order, is in itself evidence of the bitterest and most marked egoism. They ought rather to ask: Must not I too, since I am a man, call up all sorts of such powers? They find such phenomena extraordinary—in spite of innumerable explanations of their inevitability at a certain stage. It is easy to give examples of these illusions and deceptions to which people are liable. For instance, human beings to-day are in many respects very indolent—they prefer to tread the way of initiation with the accustomed ease of ordinary life; but this comfort cannot be experienced on the path leading to the spiritual world.

In ancient times the man who trod the inner path was led to the divine spiritual powers, because to them he owed the creation of his inner being. He could perceive them at work on his physical body and etheric body. Such a man could bear witness to the mysteries of the spiritual worlds, and could tell his fellow men what he passed through while being led in the Mysteries into his own inner being and hence into the spiritual world. Returning from the higher worlds he could say, ‘I have gazed into spiritual existence, but I was helped. Helpers of the Initiator in the Mysteries enabled me to outlast the time in which otherwise the demons of my own nature would have overwhelmed me.’ But because he was indebted to outside help for his view of the spiritual world, he remained all his life dependent upon the collegium and on those who had helped him. The powers who had aided him went out with him into the cosmos.

This had to be changed; this dependence had to be overcome. The seekers after initiation had to grow less and less dependent on their teachers and initiators—for something else of great importance was closely associated with that help.

At a certain moment in life, a distinct ego-feeling dawns in our everyday consciousness. This has often been described, and you find the moment described in my book, Theosophy. It is the moment when a human being first addresses himself as ‘I.’ This is something an animal cannot do. If an animal were to look into its own inner nature as a man does, it would find not an individual ego, but a group ego. In the old initiations this ego-feeling was, to a certain extent, suppressed. When a man ascended into the spiritual world his feeling of self was clouded. In the light of these lectures it can be seen that it was well this should be so, for egoism, passions, all that tends to separate man from man in the external world, are connected with the ego-feeling. To prevent these passions and emotions from reaching an excessive strength, suppression of the ego-feeling was necessary. During ancient initiation therefore, not exactly a dream-consciousness, but a suppressed condition of the ego-feeling occurred. More and more effort had to be directed towards making a man capable of initiation while maintaining full consciousness of the ego—the ego-consciousness he had in waking life. The ancient practices were to cease. This change could only be achieved in the course of time by slow and gradual stages, but already to-day in all rightly constituted initiations, the point has been reached where the ego-feeling to a high degree is not extinguished when a man rises up into higher worlds.

Let us now examine the pre-Christian initiation of the Essenes more closely. With this initiation was also associated a certain weakening of the ego-feeling. That which gives man his feeling of self in earthly existence, which enables him to confront external objects, had to be suppressed. A little reflection on even the most trivial side of waking life will suffice to make us realize that in another condition, that of sleep, when man is in the spiritual world, he has no consciousness of self. Ego-consciousness belongs to day-consciousness, when the attention is withdrawn from the spiritual world, and is directed to the world of the senses. Thus it is to-day, and so it was in the days when Christ was on earth. The man of to-day is for the most part, and in normal conditions, not awake to the spiritual world. Christian initiation really consists in the Ego remaining as wide-awake in the higher worlds as it is in the external world.

Let us consider quite clearly the moment of awakening. This moment confronts us as that in which man descends from higher worlds and plunges down into his physical and etheric bodies, the inner happenings of which, however, he fails to perceive, his attention being immediately attracted towards his environment. Everything upon which his glance falls at the moment of awakening, everything he perceives through eye or ear, everything he grasps with the understanding bound to the physical brain—everything in fact that exists in his physical environment, was included in the word ‘Malchut’ or ‘the Kingdom’ as employed in the mystery language of the ancient Hebrews. To the Hebrew, ‘Malchut’ stood for everything in which the human ego could consciously take part. ‘The Kingdom’ is primarily the sense-world, the world of waking man, man in the full possession of his ego.

Let us now follow the stages of initiation by which man descends into his own inner being. The first stage preceding the entrance into and the perception of the secrets of the etheric body is easy to surmise. The human outer sheaths consist, as we know, of the astral body, the etheric and the physical body. Into these man must enter. If he is to pass through this kind of initiation he must be able to perceive his astral body consciously from within. This he must experience first, if he wishes to enter the interior of his physical and etheric body. This is the door through which he must go. Here ever new experiences await him, and what he experiences is objective, as objective as the things he encounters in the world of the senses.

In perceiving the objects in our environment with our sense-perception, we distinguish three kingdoms, that of minerals, plants, and animals; but the ancient Hebrew did not make this distinction, he regarded them as one and summed them up in the one conception, that of the Kingdom. In the same way as our outer eye perceives animals, plants, and minerals when we direct our glance to the sense-world in which our ego is conscious, so the eye of those able to sink down into their inner nature can perceive everything that is to be perceived in the astral body. These things are not as yet beheld consciously by man through his ego, but the ego makes use of the instruments of the astral body in order to perceive them. What a man sees when he makes use of other powers of perception—that is, when his ego is active in a world with which he is connected through his astral organs—was always described in the ancient Hebrew language by three words. Just as we speak of an animal, plant, and mineral kingdom, they expressed this trinity of the astral body in the three words: Nezach, Jesod, and Hod. If these three expressions are to be made in some way conformable to our language we must enter more deeply into the old Hebrew feeling for language than is possible with the aid of an ordinary lexicon. We must call to our aid the sense for language that existed in pre-Christian times. For example, the combination of sounds in the word Hod sought to express the idea of something spiritual appearing outwardly. Try to picture this something spiritual that desires to make itself known outwardly, to express itself outwardly, but a spirituality that must be conceived of as astral in nature. This desire for outward expression is implied in a much stronger form in the word ‘Nezach.’ What is here striving to reveal itself might perhaps be rendered as ‘Something that appears to be impenetrable.’

In modern handbooks on Physics it is stated as an opinion—though it is really to be regarded as a definition, but it is not a matter of logic)—that the physical body is ‘impenetrable.’ A physical body should be defined as that of which it can be said, that when in one place, no other body can occupy the same place at the same time. This must be put down as a definition—instead of which we now have the dogma: the bodies of the physical world have the quality of impenetrability. Whereas it ought to be: two bodies cannot occupy the same place simultaneously. (This, however, is philosophy.) ‘Nezach’ expresses the self-manifestation of something in space to the exclusion of something else; it represents something a degree coarser than Hod. What lies between these two is the degree expressed in the word ‘Jesod.’

There are thus three degrees. In the first, ‘Hod’ we have the manifestation of any astral fact revealing itself outwardly. When conditions are coarsened to physical impenetrability it is called ‘Nezach’ in the Hebrew language; and the word ‘Jesod’ is used to define the intermediate conditions. These words express the three different characteristics peculiar to the beings of the astral world.

We can now enter further into man's inner nature with those who seek initiation by this method. Having overcome whatever has to be overcome in the astral body, the seeker enters into his etheric body. He then perceives something higher than is expressed by the three Hebrew words we have just considered. You may wonder why this should be higher. There is something strange here which must be noted if we are to arrive at any real knowledge of the nature of the universe. You Must realize that the highest spiritual forces are active in what are apparently the lowest manifestations of the external world. I have often drawn your attention to this and demonstrated it especially in reference to the nature of man.

Man is described as being composed of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. From a certain point of view it is true that the ego is the highest of these, but at its present stage of development it is the baby among the four principles of human nature. Though it contains the seed of the highest to which man can attain, it is at present in itself the least advanced. The physical body, on the other hand, is in itself the most perfect of the human principles, no thanks to man, but because throughout the Saturn, Sun, and Moon Periods divine beings worked upon it. Even the astral body has become more perfect than the ego. The human ego is that which is so close to us that we identify ourselves with it; in fact anyone who does not wilfully close his eyes or is not too superficial to look within himself; has only to do so to find his ego there. In comparison, think how far removed man is from the comprehension of the mysteries of his own physical body. Spiritual beings have been working on the physical body of man not for millions, but for millions of millions of years, to bring it to its present perfection of structure. Between the physical body and the ego lie the astral and etheric bodies. Compared with the physical principle the astral is very imperfect: in it are the emotions, passions, and desires. Through the emotions of the astral body many things are enjoyed which have a detrimental effect on the wonderful organism of the physical body, even though the etheric acts as an impediment between the two. Allusion has often been made to the many enjoyments that are injurious to the heart, and how the astral body would undermine the health of the human heart were it not that it is so wonderful and perfect an organization that for many decades it can withstand the attacks of the astral body. But so it is. The deeper we descend, the higher are the spiritual forces at work on our different principles. One might say: It is the youngest gods, the more recent divinely spiritual forces who have given us our ego; and the older gods who have bestowed that perfection on the lower principles of our being which man has hardly even begun to comprehend, much less to imitate with the instruments at his disposal.

This perfection was perceived more especially by those who made a descent into their inner being by the methods of initiation practised among the Essenes. Such an Essene Initiate might say: ‘Only after I have passed the first fourteen stages shall I be able to enter my astral body there I encounter all the passions and emotions connected with this astral body, together with all the harm I have done to it during this incarnation. But I am not as yet in a position to do injury to my etheric body, for it is in fact purer and more divine; and will be seen by me when I have passed through the second fourteen stages.’ He felt that if he could but withstand the attacks of the astral body, the greatest difficulties of the first fourteen stages would be overcome, and he could then enter the light spheres of his etheric body on which he had not as yet been able to inflict so much injury.

What the seekers after initiation next beheld is described in the ancient Hebrew occult teaching by three expressions which are very difficult to translate; they are Gedulah, Tipheret, and Geburah. Let us try to form some idea of the realms described by these words.

When a man perceived that which united him with his etheric body, he felt affected by the first of these—by Gedulah. The effect of Gedulah was that the individual gained a conception of the majesty, the grandeur, and over-whelming power of the spiritual world. What, on the other hand, is expressed by Geburah, though connected with the first, has a quite different quality of greatness, a greatness that is, as it were, lessened through activity. Geburah is that degree of greatness, or of power, which reveals itself outwardly in order to defend itself and to make itself known as an independent being. Thus, while the word Gedulah implies activity through intrinsic worth, Geburah is activity manifesting outwards in what might be called an aggressive way. Tipheret is an expression for greatness at rest within itself; an inwardness certainly that manifests outwardly, but without aggression; a being that because it gives expression to spiritual greatness, is such as we can only express through a combination of the two ideas, ‘goodness’ and ‘beauty.’

A being expressing its inner nature in outward form appears beautiful to us. A being giving outward expression to its intrinsic worth appears good to us. These two conceptions were both inherent in the ancient Hebrew word ‘Tipheret.’

It was descent into the etheric body that brought man in touch with the beings revealing themselves through these three attributes.

The next step is the descent into the physical body. In his physical body man learns to know (if one can so express it) the most ancient of the divine spiritual Beings who have worked on him. In Occult Science and in communications From the Akashic Records it is explained how the physical body first came into being on ancient Saturn. Very exalted spiritual beings, the Thrones, offered up their own will-substance to provide the first germ of the human physical body; and in its further development throughout the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods, exalted beings co-operated in the work on germinal humanity. In the Lectures given at Munich on Biblical Secrets of Creation I described how these exalted beings remained united with man throughout the Saturn, Sun, and Moon periods, organizing and developing ever more highly and widely the primal germ of the physical organization, so that it might become the marvel of construction we see to-day, and within which man dwells with his etheric body, astral body, and ego.

A man who is really able to descend into his own inner being perceives something that has qualities which, according to the ancient Hebrew mystical teaching, can only be imagined when concentrating on the most exalted wisdom to which the soul can attain. Such a man regards wisdom as an ideal, he feels his being exalted when he can fill it to some extent with wisdom. Those who at the time of the Essenes were able to plunge down into the physical body knew they approached beings whose whole substance consisted of what a man can attain, in small measure at least, when he strives for wisdom; a wisdom that is not won through ordinary external understanding but only through an understanding born of difficult soul experiences, and that cannot be acquired in one incarnation but in many, and only then in part—for only by acquiring every form of wisdom can man possess it completely. The beings perceived at this stage of initiation were beings of Wisdom—in them the peculiar qualities of pure unalloyed wisdom could be seen. The Hebrew word used to express the qualities of these beings, which to-day we somewhat vaguely call wisdom, was ‘Chokmah.’ A somewhat denser form of this quality of wisdom is that which is found in man, although in his individuality he can attain it only in small measure. On making the descent into his physical organism a man is again confronted with beings who possess in vast measure an attribute that is a denser form of wisdom, and which, in Hebrew terminology, was called ‘Binah.’ As beings they appeared completely illumined by this attribute. It is what is aroused in man when he is reminded of his reason, though he may indeed only achieve reason in a very restricted form. We have to imagine beings who are completely permeated by the effects of reason; it is these who are referred to when the word ‘Binah’ is used. It is a denser form of ‘Chokmah.’ In the secret doctrine of the ancient Hebrews, ‘Chokmah’ is the name for the original creative wisdom which brought forth from itself the Mysteries of the World. It was there compared to a spring of water, while ‘Binah’ was compared to the sea, thereby indicating its denser nature.

The most exalted state which could be gained through descending into the physical body was called ‘Keter.’ It is difficult to translate this word. It represents, though but faintly, the qualities of very exalted, divine spiritual beings, and can only be indicated symbolically by that which raises a man above himself, which stands for something more than he himself—hence we translate it with ‘crown.’

Here is the scale of qualities of those beings into whose realm man strives to evolve after having made the descent into his own inner nature. This must be regarded as a growing upwards.

An Essene initiation must be pictured as bringing entirely new experiences and new knowledge, and that it impressed on the pupil the reality of these qualities. It differed entirely from the initiation of neighbouring nations, which was still of the ancient form. This difference must be now explained.

All ancient initiations were especially directed towards the suppression of the feeling of self which a man has when looking upon Malchut, the Kingdom. This feeling had to be blotted out. On initiation a man cannot remain as he is in the physical world; he is certainly led into the spiritual world, but cannot remain such a man as he was when in the ‘Kingdom.’ A sharp distinction has to be made in ancient initiation between the experiences of an Initiate and how he felt when within his ego.

Were I to compress into one sentence how ancient initiation was carried out in the mystery schools of olden times, and how this life could be compared with life in the outer world I should say: ‘It must not be thought that the same feeling of self which a man experiences in the “kingdom” remains when he has developed the three times three attributes, described above, in their reality. He must withdraw from all such feelings of self. What is experienced as Nezach, Jesod, and Hod cannot be carried down into the Kingdom, or remain associated with the ordinary ego-feeling of a man.’ This was common knowledge. Whoever dared to contradict it would have been regarded as a fool, a liar, and a madman.

But the Essenes were the first to teach: ‘A time is coming when all that is above will be brought down, so that man will be able to experience it and yet maintain his ego feeling intact!’ This was what the Greeks called ‘Basileia.’ The Essenes were the first to teach of the coming of One ‘Who would bring down what is in the “Kingdoms of the Heavens” into “Malchut”, the kingdom in which the human ego dwells.’ This was first taught in mighty words by Jesus ben Pandira to his Essene followers and to certain others who were near him.

Jesus ben Pandira was the first to foretell this through the inspiration which he had received from the successor of Gautama Buddha (from the Bodhisattva who was destined to be the Maitreya Buddha); and he gave the following teaching to his pupil Mathai: ‘Hitherto the Kingdoms of Heaven could not be brought down into Malchut, the Kingdom to which the ego belongs; but when the three times fourteen generations shall be fulfilled, there will be born of the race of Abraham, in the house of Jesse (the Jessians or Essenes) One Who will bring the nine attributes of the Kingdoms of Heaven down into the Kingdom in which the ego is present.’

Such teaching was regarded as sacrilege; it was considered the vilest abuse of initiation by those who refused to recognize that what is right for one age is not necessarily right for another—bcause humanity is always advancing. Jesus ben Pandira, who taught this sacrilege, was therefore stoned to death.

Then came the time when what had been foretold was to be fulfilled, when the three times fourteen generations had been accomplished, and a physical body could arise from the blood of the race meet for Zarathustra—such a physical body as after Zarathustra had incarnated in it and brought it to fuller perfection, he could offer up to the Christ. The time had come of which the forerunner of the Christ declared: The time is at hand when ‘The Kingdoms of Heaven’ will approach the ego dwelling in the outer Kingdom—in Malchut.

We can now understand what the first self-imposed task of Christ was after he had passed through the Temptation. He had withstood temptation through the forces of His own inner being, through what, in men, we to-day call the ‘ego.’ He had succeeded in enduring and overcoming all the trials and temptations which assail a man who makes the descent into his astral, etheric, and physical bodies. This is clearly shown. All forms of egoism are represented, so that our attention is directed to them in their intensest form.

The greatest obstacle encountered by the esoteric student, as is only natural when sinking within his own inner being, is the unwise tendency to occupy himself more and more with his own much loved personality. Indeed, one never finds this more readily than in those who seek entrance into the spiritual world. They love to occupy themselves with their own personality, giving it the minutest attention. While formerly they had resolutely kept themselves away from this, as soon as they attempt development, or even as soon as they bcome Anthroposophists, they begin to occupy themselves very largely with their own ego; then all kinds of illusions arise that formerly the ordinary trend of life easily spared them. The reason for this is that such people are ignorant of how to act when everything arising from their own being becomes one with them, they are quite without experience as to what they should do. Formerly, such people were easily interested in external things; now they are more withdrawn, more interested in inner experiences. All kinds of emotions now emerge from their own nature. Why?

Such a person would like to become a complete ego, to be entirely independent of the outer world. Above all, he is now apt to fall into the error of preferring to be treated like a child who has to be told clearly what to do and to have everything explained to him. He would indeed prefer anything rather than to direct himself to the goal which esoteric life discloses. He is not yet able to give his mind to this; yet his dependence on the outer world disturbs him, especially when he wishes to be most detached from it and to interest himself in his own ego. But there is always one thing that prevents his detaching himself completely from the external world—trivial though it may be, this is the fact that he must eat! This fact shows how helpless man is without his environment; such dependence on the outer world may aptly be compared with the dependence of the finger on the hand; if severed the finger perishes. It needs but little insight to realize man's dependence on the outer world. Egoism stretched to its limits may even produce in a man the desire: If only I could become independent of my environment; if only I could create, magically within myself that which as ordinary man forces me to feel so bitterly my dependence on what is outside me

Such a wish may actually arise in the seeker after initiation. Similarly hatred may be roused by the feeling of dependence on the surrounding world and the impossibility of creating nourishment magically. It may seem extraordinary to say such things, because desires that are apparent in small things become absurd when carried to extremes. No-one really gives way to the illusion that he could create nourishment magically, and live without what comes from the ‘Kingdom,’ but carried to an extreme he might exclaim, ‘Could I but reach a stage of development where I live so truly in my astral body and ego that I no longer have need of the world about me!’ This form of temptation does arise; and it is described of One Who had experienced it most acutely, that the tempter who confronted Jesus Christ told Him to change stones into bread. Here we have temptation in its extremest form. It is in fact man's descent into his own being that is so wonderfully described in the story of the Temptation, as related in the Gospel of Matthew.

The second stage of temptation arises after the descent into the astral body has taken place, when the novice is confronted by those desires and emotions which so easily transform him into an extreme egoist. When a man feels himself confronted by these he might, instead of resisting and overcoming them, cast himself down into the etheric and physical body. This is a situation which might be described as hurling himself into the abyss. This is how it is described in the Gospel of Matthew: as a plunging down into the etheric body and physical body, into that which has so far remained almost unspoiled by man. But this cannot be until all desires and emotions have been overcome. The Christ knew this, and facing and subduing the tempter by His own power, He said, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Being to Whom thou must surrender thyself!’

Then comes the third stage, the descent into the physical body. When this descent appears as a temptation, it is described in a special way. It is an experience actually endured by everyone who reaches this stage on the path of initiation. Everything is then seen, as it were, from within, everything that is associated with the three highest principles. The seeker after initiation sees this as a world—but a world of his own illusions, a world in which it is impossible to recognize intrinsic truth without breaking through the shell of the physical body and rising to those Spiritual Beings, who have themselves left the physical body, who are no longer within it, but only work upon it. Unless we free ourselves from egoism, Lucifer or Diabolus, the tempter of the physical world continually rouses self-deception in us. He promises to give us all that we behold, but this is really Maya, the creation of our own illusion. So long as this Spirit of Egoism remains with us, we perceive a complete world—but a world of deception and lies; he promises to give us this world—but we must not think it is a world of reality. We have first to enter this world, but unless we escape from it again we remain in a world of Maya.

Christ Jesus lived through these three stages of temptation as a model and a pattern for man. Because they were once experienced outside the ancient Mysteries, experienced through the power of a Being Who Himself dwelt within the three human bodies, an impulse was given which enables man in the future course of evolution to experience the spiritual world in his own ego, even in that ego in which he dwells in Malchut. That was to be reached by what has held the two worlds apart coming to an end, so that man with his ego that lives in Malchut will be able to ascend into the spiritual world. This was the result gained for humanity in the overcoming of temptation as related in the Gospel of Matthew. It was attained through the fact that a Being living on the earth had now become a pattern for the passing over of the ego as it exists in the Kingdom, into higher kingdoms and higher worlds. What was found to result from Christ having experienced in outward historical form what had hitherto been confined to the Mysteries? What naturally followed from this? What followed was the preaching of the Kingdom.

The Gospel of Matthew therefore first describes the Temptation, and then in ordered sequence tells of the phases of the ascent of the ego, which is now able to experience the spiritual world within itself without the necessity of first going out of itself. The secret of this ego—which as it lives in the outer kingdom, ascends into the spiritual world—this secret was now to be revealed through the Christ to all the world during the time following on the story of the Temptation, as told in the Gospel of Matthew. Then come the chapters, beginning with the Sermon on the Mount, which show what Christ meant by ‘Malchut’—the Kingdom.

Profound indeed is the Gospel of Matthew. So profound that its sources must be sought in the secret teachings, not only of the Essenes, but of the ancient Hebrews, and the Greek world in general. Realization of this truth awakens in us a holy reverence and a profound respect for this document, a reverence which deepens when, furnished with the investigations of Spiritual Science, we meet with what the seers told us of old. When we hear that such things were related by the ancient seers, we feel as if we heard them speaking to us directly from far-off time. It is like the transmission of some spirit-language in which mighty individuals have conversed with one another throughout the centuries—so that those who have the will to hear can hear it. Those can hear at least who understand the words in the Gospel—‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear!’

But just as at one time much had to happen before the physical ear could be formed, so much, very much is necessary in order that spiritual ears may be developed by which we shall be able to understand what is told us in these mighty original spiritual documents.

The purpose of our new Spiritual Science is to teach people to read these spiritual documents once more. Only when we are equipped with an understanding of the ego—an understanding of the nature of the ego in the Kingdom—will it be possible for us to understand the teaching that begins with the words, ‘Blessed are those who are beggars in regard to the spirit, for through themselves, through their own ego, they will find the Kingdoms of the Heavens!’

An Initiate of olden times would have said, ‘It would have been in vain for you to seek the Kingdoms of the Heavens in your own ego.’ But Christ Jesus said: ‘The time is now come when those who seek the Kingdoms of the Heavens can find the Spirit!’

The carrying into effect in the external world of the profound secrets of the Mysteries is the historical side of the Christ Event, and in this sense we propose to study this Event yet more closely. You will then understand what interpretation to put on the words, ‘Blessed are those,’ with which the Sermon on the Mount begins.

• 1. This sentence is not negated in the original German. —SOL

The Initiation of the Ego. The Gospels are the books of the Mysteries. The Life of Christ, a repetition of Initiation on the great plane of world history

From what has already been given out in these Lectures we are led to the conviction that the following are the essential facts of the Christ Event. The stage of human development described as raising the soul to spiritual realms was only attainable in pre-Christian days within the Mysteries, and then only through a certain dimming of the ego. Human development, however, was destined to receive so powerful an impulse that those who could rise to it would be able to retain full ego-consciousness on entering the world of spirit. This condition belongs for the most part to the future, for ego-consciousness at the present day is normal only on the physical planes.

The advance in human evolution imparted by the Christ Event is the greatest that has yet been made, or ever will be made, in human or earthly evolution. Whatever may arise in the future in consequence of this event will be but a further development of this mighty impulse. Therefore we ask ourselves: What then actually had to come to pass through the Event of Christ?

In a certain way there must be a repetition; a repetition in detail, of what belonged to the secrets of the ancient Mysteries. It was characteristic of those Mysteries, as it is to some extent of those of to-day that he who penetrated within his own physical and etheric bodies experienced the temptations of the astral body as described in the last Lecture. In the Greek Mysteries, on the other hand, man had to confront the difficulties and dangers that always approach those who try to pour themselves forth into the macrocosm. This also has been described. Both these types of initiation were experienced as a single impulse of a great outstanding individuality by the Christ as a pattern for mankind. Through this an impetus was given by which men would gradually in future be able to pass through such a development as came to them in initiation.

Let us therefore consider first what was accomplished in the Mysteries. All that the human soul then passed through was experienced with the ego-consciousness reduced to something half dream-like, and in this condition the inner soul nature gained certain experiences. Such a man experienced the awakening of egoism, the desire to be independent of the external world; but, as explained in the last lecture, so long as man is unable to create food magically, unable to dispense with what is acquired through his physical organism, he is dependent on the outer world. Therefore he is exposed to the illusion that all he perceives by means of his physical nature applies only to the world and to the splendour thereof. Every pupil, every would-be initiate went through this experience, though not in the same way as the Christ, Who experienced it on the highest level. Therefore a description of these facts, which are only experienced by a pupil of the Mysteries, would be in a certain way similar to a description of the life of Christ Jesus. What then took place outwardly, once and for all time, on the plane of the world's history, had been confined hitherto to the darkness of the Mysteries.

Let us consider the following case, one that was frequent in the centuries immediately preceding Christ. Let us suppose that an artist or a writer had learnt that this or that procedure was followed during initiation, and, that he had painted or written of it. Such a picture, or writing might well resemble what is related by the Evangelists of the Christ Event; and one can understand how in many ancient Mysteries after due preparation the candidate's physical form was bound with outstretched hands in the form of a cross, so that his soul nature might be liberated. He remained thus for a certain time, so as to draw forth his soul nature, and that he might undergo the experiences already related. These things might have been represented in paintings or described in writing. They might then be discovered by someone to-day, who might deduce from them that the painter had painted a scene of the Mysteries, or the writer had recorded an old tradition. He might then go on to say that the facts of the Gospels are merely records of the rites of an initiation of former days.

This is frequently stated—and to how great an extent is shown in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, in which I explain how all the secrets of the ancient Mysteries appear again in the Gospels, how in fact the Gospels are but repetitions of ancient accounts of initiation as carried out in the Mysteries. Why in telling of the life of Christ does the Evangelist simply describe facts of the ancient Mysteries? The Evangelist describes the scenes of the ancient Mysteries because he saw these inner processes of the soul carried out as historic facts; because all the events of the life of Christ Jesus were a repetition, exalted to the level of an Ego-Being, of the symbolic or even actual-symbolic acts of ancient initiation.

This fact needs emphasis: Those who take their stand on the ground of the historical truth of the Christ Event may rightly point out the resemblance between the Gospel biographies of Christ Jesus and the occurrences of the Mysteries. To express it more exactly, those who were destined to behold the Christ Event in Palestine beheld the fulfilment of the Essene prophecy; the Baptism in Jordan, the Temptation, the Crucifixion, and all that followed. They could say therefore: We have represented to us here the life of a Being in a human body. What are the essential points in the life of this Being? Strange to relate, we find, enacted here in external historic life, certain events that are the very same as those which occurred to the initiate in the ancient Mysteries. We need only refer to the canon of a Mystery to discover a model for those events which are here described as historical facts.

That in fact is the great secret, that what was formerly hidden within the obscurity of the temple, and only reached the world in its results, was now enacted on the great stage of universal history as the Christ Event, and could be seen by those who had attained spiritual vision. It should be realized that in the days when the Evangelists wrote, biographies such as we have to-day were unknown; biographies for instance of Goethe, Schiller, or Lessing giving in detail every minute scrap of information, in which the most unimportant details are amassed and presented as of the greatest moment. With the attention fixed on this mass of detail, concentration on facts of essential importance is impossible. The Evangelists were content to relate the essential facts of the life of Christ Jesus, and the fact of supremest importance is, that in the great plan of world history, the life of Christ is a repetition of initiation. Can we wonder that this truth which has come to light in our time should be so disconcerting to many people—so really overwhelming. These things which are so disconcerting will strike you even more vividly when you consider what follows.

Myths and sagas come to us from the past. What are they? Anyone who understands them, and knows what they are, will find in them descriptions of what ancient clairvoyance had seen in the spiritual world clothed in happenings of the world of the senses, or he will find other myths that are in essence nothing but descriptions of the Mysteries. The myth of Prometheus, for instance, like many another, is partly a reproduction of deeds enacted in the Mysteries. We often find the scene described when Zeus appears and near him some lower god who—according to the Greek account—tempts him. Zeus, standing on an eminence, is ‘tempted by Pan.’ This is one form; there are many others. Why does this image occur so frequently? Because it expresses the descent of man into his inner being, the descent into the physical and etheric body bringing with it the encounter with his lower nature, his egotistical Pan-nature.

The ancient world is full of such accounts of experiences during initiation, which are in this way given artistic form in myths and symbols. Many people who take a superficial view, make the grand discovery that certain knowledge is here presented in the form of symbols. And this upsets people who do not know, or wish to know the facts. They read of Pan tempting Zeus, and say: ‘It is easy to see from this that the scene of the temptation of Christ had taken place before. The Evangelists have only repeated some ancient allegorical tale, and the Gospels are compiled out of such ancient tales.’ It is but a step from this to the conclusion that the Gospels contain nothing of special import, that they are only pieced together from myths and that Christ Jesus is fictitious. A great movement arose in Germany which took the form of frivolous discussions as to whether Christ Jesus had ever really lived. With a grotesque lack of knowledge, bft with profound learning, the various myths and legends which bore some resemblance to scenes in the Gospel were discussed again and again. It is of little avail to-day to impart anything concerning the true facts, although they are well known to those who have knowledge. This is how spiritual movements develop in our time; truly the way in which they develop is very grotesque

There would be no need to interpolate these remarks were it not that one is constantly obliged to make a stand against misrepresentations that are made from one side or another, with apparently great learnedness, against the statements of Spiritual Science.

The true facts are given in these Lectures. We have to see in the Gospels a recapitulation of events that took place in the Mysteries, though in them the secrets of initiation refer to a very different Individuality, and they really wish to say to us: ‘Behold, what formerly was accomplished in the Mysteries through suppression of the consciousness has now been accomplished in a marvellous and outstanding manner by an Ego-Being in full ego-consciousness!’ We need not therefore wonder at the statement that the Gospels hardly contain anything that did not exist before. What we have to realize is, that what was told formerly, related to the ascent of man to the Kingdom of Heaven; never before had what men call the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ come down into the ego. What was essentially new was this: What formerly had taken place in a state of suppressed consciousness and in super-sensible realms could now take place in full consciousness in Malchut, ‘The Kingdom.’ This is why, after Christ Jesus had experienced what is described in the Gospel of Matthew as the Temptation, He became the preacher of ‘The Kingdom.’ What was the essence of his preaching? He said: What formerly was attained through the darkening of the human ego, and through man receiving other beings into himself; can now be achieved with complete retention of the ego-consciousness! This fact is stressed again and again. Hence the necessity for a repetition of scenes from the Mysteries in the life of Christ Jesus. Hence also the necessity of the ‘Sermon concerning the Kingdom,’ in which Christ declared: Everything promised to those who passed through the Mysteries or accepted their teaching can now come to those who experience in themselves the ego-being and follow the path first traversed for humanity by Christ.

Thus everything had to be a repetition; even as regards the teaching. It need not surprise us that special emphasis is laid on the difference between the old teaching and the new; that stress was laid on the fact that the ego could now achieve in itself what had hitherto been quite impossible for it.

Suppose that Christ had wished to refer specially to this great truth. He would have shown how formerly, in accordance with the teaching of the Mysteries, human beings had ever looked up to the Kingdom of Heaven, and had felt that from heavenly realms something came down to them which blessed them, but did not enter their ego. The Father-Source of Existence had only been attainable with a suppressed Ego. Had it been necessary for Christ to retain this former teaching concerning the Divine Paternal Source of existence, and only change the nuance upon which the teaching depended, He must have expressed it thus: ‘If formerly men said, you must raise your eyes to the realms where the Father dwelleth, the divine Source of all existence, and wait until His Light streams down upon you, now it is possible to say: The Father not only sends down His Light to you, but that which is willed on high must enter the very depths of man's ego-nature, and be willed there also.’

Let us suppose that each separate phrase of the Lord's Prayer had existed previously, only that something in them had to be changed. Christ would have said: ‘In former times man looked up to the ancient divine Father Spirit, feeling that everything there endures, and looks down on your earthly kingdom.’

But now this Heavenly Kingdom was to come down to earth where the ego dwells, and the Will that is done in Heaven was also to be done on Earth. What would be the result of this? The result would be, that those who had a deeper vision and could perceive the finer degrees of difference would not be surprised at the fact that the Lord's Prayer had existed earlier. The superficial observer does not notice these finer shades of difference, nor can he understand the true meaning of Christianity. If he came upon these phrases in ancient times he would have said: ‘There it is, the Evangelists write about the Lord's Prayer, but it existed already before their time!’

You can now realize the difference between a true and a superficial understanding of what is written. It is important that those who note the new shades of meaning should apply them to the old. The others, not seeing the difference, merely assert that the Lord's Prayer existed before.

Such facts require attention and have to be spoken of here, because Anthroposophists should be enabled to meet to some extent the dilettante learning of to-day: a learning which passes through countless hundreds of periodicals, until finally it is accepted as ‘Science.’ One individual has actually compared every possible ancient record, searching each source in the Talmud literature, in an endeavour to find some resemblance to the words of the Lord's Prayer. But what these learned people have accumulated is nowhere found in its entirety outside the Gospels. Scattered phrases resembling those of the Lord's Prayer they have discovered here and there. To reduce this method to absurdity it might as well be said that the first sentence of Goethe's ‘Faust’ was constructed in the following way: In the seventeenth century there was a student who failed in his examination, and who afterwards remarked to his father, With what an infinity of trouble I have studied law! And another failing in medicine might have said, ‘With what infinity of trouble have I studied medicine!’ And that from these two remarks Goethe had composed the opening sentences of Faust! This is paradoxical! But in principle and methods it is exactly what we meet in critics of the Gospels.

You will find this in the following patched-up sentences. I take them from Die-Evangelien-Mythen, John M. Robertson, Jena, Diedrichs, 1910. It is supposed to represent the Lord's Prayer:

‘Our Father Who art in Heaven; O Lord our God, blessed be Thy Name, and may the memory of Thee be glorified in Heaven above as on Earth below. Let Thy Kingdom rule over us now and ever more. Holy men of old have said: Let all men be forgiven whatever they may have done to me. And lead us not into temptation. But deliver us from the wicked. For Thine is the Heavenly Kingdom; and Thou shalt reign in splendour for ever and ever.’

These sentences were collected and put together in the manner I have just described, and are called the ‘Lord's Prayer.’ But the subtle shades of meaning necessary to give the unique significance of the Christ Event are lacking. In none of these phrases do we find it stated that the Kingdom of Heaven is to come down. The sentence runs: ‘Let Thy Kingdom rule over us now and ever more,’ not ‘Let Thy Kingdom come to us.’ This is the essential point, which entirely escapes superficial observers and although these sentences are gathered, not from one, but from many libraries, nowhere do we find the words ‘Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven’ for these imply its taking hold of the ego.

Even regarded from the external scientific point of view, we have here clearly demonstrated the difference between an apparent investigation and one that is truly conscientious, and takes every fact into consideration. And this true investigation exists if people will only take the trouble to pursue it.

These sentences from J. M. Robertson's book have been deliberately selected, for it is a kind of modern gospel recently translated from English into German to make it available to wider circles. For until now a certain person¹ who has given numerous lectures on the subject of whether Jesus really lived, would have had to read it in English. This book gained popularity, and hence the translation.

It has accordingly been possible for a professor of a German Academy to travel widely giving lectures on the question, ‘Did Jesus live?’ Basing his teaching on the facts just given, he answered the question thus: ‘There is no documentary evidence forcing us to accept the fact that such a person as Jesus has ever lived;’ and among many very excellent works, he referred his hearers to J. M. Robertson's book. But for the protection of Anthroposophists I can say: Even from this book, from these historical investigations of the New Testament records, you can learn many things, and there is something further, something very characteristic that I should like to tell you.

This book informs us that not only in phrases drawn from the Talmud is there a model of the Lord's Prayer, but that traces of it may be discovered in chronicles reaching back for thousands of years. To substantiate the fact of the Lord's Prayer being a collection of phrases already existing, and that no Christ was needed to give it out first to the people, an allusion is made to the discovery of a prayer written on little tablets in the Chaldean tongue, a prayer addressed to the old Babylonian god Merodach. Some of the sentences quoted there are as follows, and should be carefully noted: ‘May the fulness of the world come down into thy midst (or city); may thy precepts be fulfilled in all the ages to come. ... May the evil Spirit dwell far from thee.’²

And the savant upon whom these sentences made such an impression added: ‘Here we have prayer-norms which are in line with the Lord's Prayer and perhaps go back 4000 years before Christ.’

Look carefully, and see if you can find anywhere any resemblance between the sentences of the Lord's Prayer and these phrases! Yet these are regarded by this man as prayer-norms, of which the Lord's Prayer is merely a copy! Such things are accepted nowadays as true investigations in this domain of knowledge.

A further reason for presenting these facts to Anthroposophists is that they may be able to calm and strengthen their consciences when troubled by the constant assertion that this or that fact has been established by external investigation. They may well be troubled upon reading in papers or magazines that a tablet has been discovered in Asia proving the existence of the Lord's Prayer, 4000 years before Christ. In such a case it is necessary to ask how such a fact can be proved. The above example reveals the slender foundations on which scientifically based facts are frequently supposed to have been proved. It is unnecessary for students of Anthroposophy to trouble about the worthless facts so often brought forward against it.

But to return to our main theme; Christ Jesus inaugurated an evolution in human nature, based on the retention of the full consciousness of the ego. He inaugurated the initiation of the ego. We can therefore say that the most essential part of the human being to-day is the ego; in it all human nature is centred; everything brought into the world through the Christ Event for this ego, can enter also into all the other members of man's being. This will naturally come to pass in a quite special way, and in accordance with human evolution.

The possibilities of human development are to be clearly seen from these Lectures. Recognition of the physical world, not only through the senses but also through the understanding, and through the intellect connected with the physical brain, first began to function generally just a short time before the Christ Event. It superseded a certain kind of clairvoyance. This clairvoyance which was mentioned in my Lectures on the early Atlantean evolution was universal at that time, though later it came slowly and gradually to an end. Down to the Christian era there were still many who in the intermediate condition between sleeping and waking were able to gaze into, and participate in, the spiritual world. Such a ‘partaking’ in the spiritual world was not only linked with the fact that the average man who had a certain degree of clairvoyance could state: ‘Behind the tapestry of the world of the senses there is a spiritual world. I know this, for I can perceive it.’ This was not all; something else was connected with it. In long past ages it was comparatively easy for human nature to be aware of the spiritual world. The nature of man to-day is different, and it is exceedingly difficult to pass in the right way through the esoteric training that leads to clairvoyance. In somnambulism and similar things we see a relic, a last remnant of the old-time clairvoyance. These conditions which are irregular to-day were normal in ancient times, and could be enhanced by undergoing certain processes. When human nature was exalted to participation in the life of the spiritual world something else was associated with it. To-day there is so little regard for that in which true history consists that people pick and choose what they will, or will not, believe. But, in face of modern scepticism, it is nevertheless true that in the time of Christ certain acts of healing were performed by rendering people clairvoyant. In our time human beings are so deeply sunk within the physical plane that this is no longer possible; but in that earlier period the soul was still very impressionable, and certain processes were all that were necessary to bring about clairvoyance and an entrance into the spiritual world. The spiritual world, being a health-giving element, sends down health-giving forces into the physical world, so that it was possible to effect cures through it. The person who was ill was put through certain processes which led him to perceive the spiritual world. Then the spiritual stream, flowing down into his whole being brought health. This was the usual method of healing. What is described to-day as ‘Temple healing’ is dilettante in comparison.

Everything is in a state of evolution, and, since the time of which we have been speaking, souls have progressed from clairvoyance to non-clairvoyance. Formerly through enhancement of the clairvoyant condition men could be cured of certain illnesses by the spirit streaming from the spiritual into the physical world. We need not, therefore, be surprised at the statements of the Evangelists, that the Christ Event meant that the spiritual world could now be attained not only by those who possessed the old clairvoyance but also by those who had lost it.

Men could say: ‘Looking back into olden times we see men endowed with vision of the spiritual world; but now, through the advance of evolution, they have become poor in the spirit, beggars for the spirit. But Christ has brought this great Mystery into the world, that into the ego—even into the ego of the physical plane—the forces of the Heavenly Kingdoms can enter; thus those who have lost the old clairvoyance and with it the riches of the spiritual realms can yet receive the spirit within themselves and be blessed!’ Hence the wonderful declaration Henceforth not only those are blessed who are rich in the spirit through the old clairvoyance, but those also who are poor or beggars for the spirit; for when Christ has opened the way, into their ego will flow what may be described as the Kingdoms of the Heavens!

In ancient times the physical organism was of such a nature that a partial withdrawal of the soul could be brought about even in normal conditions, and through this withdrawal men became clairvoyant, that is, rich in spirit. With the gradual densification of the human body, which however is quite imperceptible anatomically; is associated poverty as regards the Kingdoms of the Heavens. Man had become a ‘beggar for spirit;’ but through the Event of Christ it is now possible for him to experience the Kingdoms of the Heavens within himself. This is a possibility that can be rightly associated with the physical body.

If we were now to describe what takes place through the ego-man, we should have to show how each principle of human nature can be blessed in itself in a new way. The sentence: ‘Blessed are the beggars for the spirit, for within themselves they will find the Kingdoms of the Heavens!’ is the new truth as regards the physical body.

The blessedness of the etheric body is expressed differently. The etheric body contains the principle of suffering as you can find in many of the lectures. A living being, although it has an astral body, can only suffer through injury to the etheric body. If the healing which formerly poured into the etheric body from the spiritual world were to be described according to the new teaching it would be said: Sufferers can now find comfort not only by passing out of themselves and being united with the spiritual world as in earlier days, but they can find comfort within themselves by entering into a new relationship with the spiritual world, for Christ has brought a new power to the etheric body. Hence the new truth concerning the etheric body declares: ‘Sufferers can now be blessed, not only through entering the spiritual world clairvoyantly and allowing the outpourings of the spirit to come to them in this state, but they can be blessed when lifting themselves up to Christ they fill themselves with the new truth, and find in themselves the solace for every sorrow.’

And what of the astral body? When men of an earlier day endeavoured to suppress their emotions and passions and the egoism of their astral nature, they sought power from the Kingdom of Heaven; they submitted themselves to processes by which the harmful instincts of the astral body were destroyed. But the time had now come when through the act of Christ man had received power into the ego itself by which he could bridle and tame the passions and emotions of his astral body. So the new truth concerning the astral body must read as follows: ‘Blessed are those who have become meek through the power of their own ego, for they will inherit the kingdom of earth!’ Profound indeed is the thought contained in this third Beatitude. Let us examine it in the light of Occult Science.

The astral body was incorporated into man's being during the Moon evolution, and the Luciferic beings who had gained influence over him had established themselves especially in this body. Therefore man from the beginning was unable to reach his highest earthly goal. These Luciferic beings, as we know, remained behind at the Moon stage of evolution, and hindered man from progressing in the right way; but since the descent of Christ to earth, when it has been possible for the ego to be impregnated with His power, man has been enabled to fulfil the mission of the earth by finding in himself the power to bridle his astral body and drive out the Luciferic influences. Therefore, it can be said: ‘He who can curb his astral body, who is so strong that he cannot be moved to anger without the consent of his ego, he who is even-tempered and inwardly strong enough to overcome the astral body, will fulfil the purpose of earthly evolution.’ So in the third Beatitude we have a formula which Spiritual Science has made comprehensible to us.

How can man succeed in controlling the remaining members of his being and bless them through the indwelling Spirit of Christ? He can do this when his soul-nature is controlled by the ego as truly and worthily as is his physical body. Passing on to the sentient soul, we can say: As man gradually evolves to a consciousness of the Christ, he must arrive at experiencing a feeling of longing in his sentient soul similar to what he previously experienced unwittingly as the physical longing we call hunger and thirst. He must thirst for the things of the soul, as the body hungers and thirsts for food and drink. What can be attained through the indwelling Christ-force is that which is described comprehensively in the old-fashioned phrase as thirsting after righteousness; and when a man has filled his sentient soul with the Christ-force he can reach a point where it is possible for him to satisfy this thirst through the power that is in him.

The fifth Beatitude is especially noteworthy, as might be expected, for it refers to the rational, or intellectual soul. Those who have studied my books, Occult Science or Theosophy, or have listened to the lectures on Spiritual Science given during many years, are familiar with the idea of the ego holding together the three principles of the human soul—the sentient soul, the rational, intellectual or mind-soul, and the consciousness-soul or spiritual soul. The ego, though present in the sentient-soul, is as yet in a dulled condition; it comes to life in the intellectual-soul, and through this, man first becomes a complete human being. While man's lower principles and even the sentient-soul are dominated by divine spiritual beings, he becomes an individual in the rational-soul, in it the ego dawns. Therefore we must speak of the reception of the Christ-force into the intellectual or rational-soul in a different way from that used when treating of the lower principles. In the lower principles—the physical, etheric, and astral sheaths, and also in the sentient-soul, divine beings are at work, and to them anything in the way of virtues man has acquired are again taken up. But the qualities evolved in the rational-soul, when this has developed what it receives from the Christ, must above all be human attributes. When a man begins to discover this soul within himself he grows less and less dependent on the divine forces around him. We have here something that belongs to man himself. When he absorbs the power of Christ into this soul he can develop virtues which go from like to like, which are not besought from Heaven as a loan, but go forth from man and return to a being similar to himself. We must try to feel that something streams forth from the virtues of the rational soul in such a way that something similar streams to us again. Wonderful to relate, the fifth Beatitude actually shows us this distinctive quality.

Even a faulty translation cannot conceal the fact; it is different from all the others in that it says: ‘Blessed are the merciful for they will receive mercy.’ What goes forth returns again—as it must if we accept it in the sense of Occult Science.

In the sixth Beatitude, which refers to the spiritual-soul, we arrive at that principle in man which enables the ego to attain full expression, after which he can make further ascent, in a new way. You know that at the time of the coming of Christ the rational soul first came to expression; in our time it is the spiritual-soul that is destined to find expression—the soul by means of which man will ascend again to the spiritual world. While human self-consciousness first dawned within the rational soul, it is in the spiritual-soul that the ego attains full development and rises once more to the spiritual world. The man who becomes a receptacle for the Christ-force, because he experiences the Christ in himself, will, by pouring his ego into the consciousness-soul or spiritual-soul, and experiencing it in its purity for the first time, be able in this way to find his God. Now it has been said that the blood is the expression of the ego in the physical body, and that its centre is in the heart. Therefore this sixth Beatitude has to express in a practical way how the ego, through the qualities with which it endows heart and blood, can partake of divinity. How does this verse run? ‘Blessed are those who are pure in heart for they shall see God.’ Though not a specially good translation it serves our purpose.

This is how Spiritual Science pours light on the whole structure of these wonderful sentences in which Christ gives instruction to His most intimate pupils, after He had withstood the Temptation in the wilderness.

The remaining Beatitudes refer to a man's raising of himself to the higher principles of his being; to the spirit-self, life-spirit, and spirit-man. They give but an indication of what it will be possible to experience in the future, of what is only possible in our day to a few exceptional individuals. Thus the seventh Beatitude, referring to the spirit-self, says: ‘Blessed are those who draw down into themselves the spirit-self, the first of the spiritual principles, for they will be called the children of God.’ The first of the higher triad has, in this case, entered into these men. They have received God into themselves; they have become an outer expression of the Godhead.

In what follows it is clearly shown that only exceptional beings can attain to what is spoken of in the eighth Beatitude, those who fully understand what the future is to bring to the whole of humanity. This, the ‘complete reception of Christ into a man's inner being,’ is only for a few chosen ones. Because these are exceptional individuals, they are persecuted, for others are unable to understand them. Hence, referring to the persecution of these representatives of the future race, this Beatitude declares: ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake; for in themselves they will find the Kingdom of Heaven.’

The ninth and last Beatitude has especial reference to the most intimate disciples only. It is associated with the ninth member of man's being—the spirit-man: ‘Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you and persecute you for my sake.’

Thus in these wonderful lines reference is made to the nine principles of human nature, and we are shown how the ego is constituted when it becomes ‘Christ-filled’ as regards the different principles of man's being, and blesses them. In the portions following on the Temptation, the Gospel of Matthew shows in grand and majestic way how the influence of Christ works in the nine-fold human nature in the present, and then how it will work in the near future, when those in whom the spirit-self has dawned are already called ‘Children of God,’ even if these children of God are only to be found in a few blessed examples. Especially remarkable is the distinct language used concerning the first principles which are already in being, and the lapse into indeterminate language in the last sentences where the far future is referred to.

Once more let me touch on the superficial method of research. Suppose someone were investigating if sentences could anywhere be found similar to those of the Sermon on the Mount, or if the Evangelists had perhaps compiled these from something else. Suppose also that this person had no idea of what was referred to in the Beatitudes: that the important matter there dealt with was the filling of man's ego-nature with the Christ. If reference to this marvellous enhancement of the ego-nature had not been noticed, he could indicate the following. One has only to read a little further in the book already mentioned to find in it a chapter headed ‘The Beatitudes,’ in which reference is made to ‘Enoch’ (this is not the usual Enoch), and herein nine ‘Beatitudes’ are cited. The author has this much in his favour, that he acknowledges that this document belongs to the very beginning of the Christian era, and he believes that what we have described as being a document of the very profoundest importance and depth could have been copied from the following nine Beatitudes of this Slavonic Enoch.

1. Blessed is he who fears the name of the Lord, and incessantly serves before his face, etc.
2. Blessed is he who does not give a false judgment on account of payment, but in the cause of fairness, not expecting anything in exchange; he will receive a just judgment later.
3. Blessed is he who clothes the naked with his raiment, and feeds the hungry with his bread.
4. Blessed is he who judges rightly the fatherless and widows and supports all those who are oppressed.
5. Blessed is he who turns from the restless path of this vain world, travelling the true way which leads to eternal life.
6. Blessed is he who sows good seed, he will reap sevenfold.
7. Blessed is he in whom is truth, and speaks truth to his neighbours.
8. Blessed is he who has love on his lips, and kindness in his heart.
9. Blessed is he who understands each word of the Lord, and extols His name, etc., etc.

These phrases are certainly beautiful; but consider their whole construction, and the matter with which they are concerned, namely, the recounting of a few worthy platitudes suitable to any period other than one of such tremendous upheaval—the age in which the power of the ego was first being made known. If these lines are likened by anyone to the Beatitudes of the Gospel of Matthew, he stands at the external point of those who compare the religions of mankind in an external way, who, whenever they discover something in any way similar, instantly state an identity, paying no heed to the essential point.

Only when the essential point is recognized does one realize that there is progress in human evolution, and that man advances from stage to stage; that he is not born anew in a physical body in a later millennium to experience over again what he has experienced already, but so that he may experience that in which humanity has progressed meanwhile. That is the meaning of history and of human evolution. Of history, and of human evolution in this sense the Gospel of Matthew speaks on every page.

• 1. Dr. Arthur Drews.
• 2. In the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Oct., 1891, Mr. T. G. Pinches publishes for the first time the translation of a tablet found at Sippara in the year 1882, in which the sentences quoted above appear as an incantation to Merodach.