The Gospel of John and the Other Three Gospels E-Book

Rudolf Steiner

• Herausgeber: Rudolf Steiner Press
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: The Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 331

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

'What is the Christ-event? It is a confluence of all preceding philosophies and religious streams of humanity… united in Palestine; and they were expressed in the Gospels according to the different types of initiation of the one or other Evangelist.' – Rudolf Steiner Speaking two years after his main lecture course on the Gospel of John, Rudolf Steiner discusses initiation traditions in the course of human history, and how the Christ Event unified them all – in particular, those connected to the Western and Eastern mysteries. In addition to esoteric interpretations of passages in the Gospels, Steiner also presents many new and complementary insights on the world-historic significance of Christ's mission, including his initial reference to the Second Coming in the etheric realm. Dense in content, these thirteen lectures – delivered to an audience at the Royal Swedish Academy of Science, Stockholm – enrich our understanding of Rudolf Steiner's Christology. Only recently published in German, and here in English for the first time, the lectures are accompanied with an introduction by Hans-Christian Zehnter, an appendix of photos and facsimiles, extensive notes and an index. 'The voice rose and the speaking took on a more rapid tempo, while it flowed without stopping in perfectly formed, beautiful sentences, as only a born speaker can produce.' (From a contemporary newspaper review.) Thirteen lectures, Stockholm, Jan. 1910, GA 117a

Leseprobe

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN AND THE OTHER THREE GOSPELS

Thirteen lectures given in Stockholm, 3–15 January 1910

TRANSLATED BY DR KATRIN BINDER

INTRODUCTION BY HANS-CHRISTIAN ZEHNTER

RUDOLF STEINER

Rudolf Steiner Press

Hillside House, The Square

Forest Row, RH18 5ES

www.rudolfsteinerpress.com

Published by Rudolf Steiner Press 2025

Originally published in German under the title Das Johannes-Evangelium und die drei anderen Evangelien (volume 117a in the Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe or Collected Works) by Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach. Based on shorthand notes that were not reviewed or revised by the speaker. This authorized translation is based on the first German edition (2018), edited by Hans-Christian Zehnter

Published by permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach

© Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag 1987

This translation © Rudolf Steiner Press 2025

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. In accordance with Article 4(3) of the DSM Directive 2019/790, Rudolf Steiner Press expressly reserves this work from the text and data mining exception

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 85584 706 4

Cover by Morgan Creative

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Printed and bound by 4Edge Ltd., Essex

CONTENTS

Publisher’s Note

Introduction, by Hans-Christian Zehnter

LECTURE 1

STOCKHOLM, 3 JANUARY 1910

Four gospels and four mystery schools: initiates of thinking, the ‘wise’—the Gospel of John; initiates of feeling, the ‘healers’—the Gospel of Luke; initiates of the will, the ‘magicians’—the Gospel of Mark; the harmonizing initiates, the ‘human beings’—the Gospel of Matthew. The Christ-Event as the confluence of all preceding philosophies and religious streams: the stream from the Buddha in Luke’s Gospel, the stream of Zarathustra in Mark’s Gospel, the ancient Hebrew stream in Matthew’s Gospel. The deepest initiation in John’s Gospel as a Sun above the other gospels.

LECTURE 2

STOCKHOLM, 4 JANUARY 1910

Attributing John’s Gospel to a direct pupil of the Christ, in contrast to the other three gospels. Theosophy referring to the Akasha Chronicle as a source. John’s Gospel as the teaching of the Christ as the Word of the world incarnate. Incarnation of Buddha at the turning point of time in the form of the nirmanakaya. Incarnation of Zarathustra at the turning point of time as the Solomon Jesus boy.

LECTURE 3

STOCKHOLM, 5 JANUARY 1910

The Nathan Jesus boy with the pure ether body of humanity and an astral body in which the Buddha’s nirmanakaya was at work. Asita of the Buddha legend as Simeon of Luke’s Gospel. Descent of the Solomon Jesus boy’s physical body from the ancient Hebrew line starting with Abraham. The three Magi from the Orient as pupils of Zaratas-Nazaratos. The transition of the Zarathustra-‘I’ from the Nathan into the Solomon Jesus boy.

LECTURE 4

STOCKHOLM, 7 JANUARY 1922

The external (ancient Persian) and inner (ancient Indian) streams of humanity unite when the Zarathustra-‘I’ transitions into the Nathan Jesus boy. Spiritual vision in the ancient Persian stream through ecstasy, in the ancient Indian stream through inward contemplation; both imply a loss of consciousness of the self. The teaching of John the Baptist at the beginning of that era in which a vision of spiritual worlds will become possible while remaining conscious of one’s self. The Baptism in the Jordan as a symbol of this. The teaching of the Buddha as a religion of salvation, the teaching of the Christ as a religion of resurrection. The extraction of the Zarathustra-‘I’ from the physical body of the Nathan Jesus and the entry of the Christ-‘I’ in its stead at the Baptism in the Jordan as a precondition for this transition.

LECTURE 5

STOCKHOLM, 8 JANUARY 1910

The Christ-being as the Word of the world that was until then spread across the world. Description of the human aspect of the Christ through Matthew and Luke, of the Logos working from the outside in through Mark and of the Logos working from the inside out through John. Meeting Lucifer, or the lesser Guardian, in the inwardly focussed Egyptian initiation; in the more externally focussed Persian initiation meeting with Ahriman, or the greater Guardian. Unification of both initiations in Christ; thus the meeting with both tempters in the desert.

PUBLIC LECTURE

STOCKHOLM, 9 JANUARY 1910

The European Mysteries and their initiates—the Mysteries of the Druids and Trotten Today, initiation is possible through the path of schooling. It requires a strengthening of the astral body, e.g. through the Rosicrucian meditation in Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. Earlier initiations required the aid of external means. The more inward and the more external initiation in the Dionysian and Apollonian mysteries and in the mysteries of the trotten and Druids.

LECTURE 6

STOCKHOLM, 10 JANUARY 1910

The descriptions of John’s Gospel as those of spiritual vision. Examples: the conversation between Nicodemus and Christ at night and the description of the events at the Jordan-Baptism. The ascent of the Jesus-consciousness to God-consciousness as content of the Gospel of John. The occult meaning of the ‘true Israelite’ Nathanael and of Jesus as ‘king of Israel’. Christ as the bringer of spiritual love. The Marriage at Cana as an example of the power of the Christ over the sense impressions of other people. Transformation of Mary into Sophia through receiving her ‘virginity’ by means of the entry of the Nathan mother into the Solomon mother.

LECTURE 7

STOCKHOLM, 11 JANUARY 1910

The harmonizing of the inner human being as a prerequisite for harmonious outer effectiveness. Descent of the physical body from the father principle of the cosmos; the ‘I’ dependent on the physical body. Descent of the etheric body from the mother principle of the cosmos; the astral body dependent on the ether body. Overcoming the father principle of the physical body to acquire initiation; this as a prerequisite for the ability to unite with the mother principle of the etheric body. Occult background of the Oedipus story, of the Judas legend and also of the Marriage at Cana.

INSERTED LECTURE

STOCKHOLM, 12 JANUARY 1910

End of the Kali Yuga. From 1933 appearance of people with emerging clairvoyant faculties; beginning of the return of the Christ in the etheric realm. Appearance of schools of black magic.

LECTURE 8

STOCKHOLM, 12 JANUARY 1910

Direct effect of the Christ on the ‘I’, his insight into the karma of human beings: conversation with the Samaritan woman, the healing of the son of the centurion, healing of the sick at the pool of Bethesda. The feeding of the 5000 through the release of vital energies at the disintegration of the physical body of the Christ. The twelve baskets as a picture of the twelve limbs of the Christ-body. The walking on the sea. The scene of the adulteress and the healing of the blind man as pictures of the fact that Christ allows the will of the Father to work. The resurrection of Lazarus as the entering of the life of Christ into the body of Lazarus. Lazarus as the disciple John whom Jesus loved and as author of the Gospel of John.

LECTURE 9

STOCKHOLM, 13 JANUARY 1910

The pre-Christian mysteries as sources for the understanding of the gospels. After preparation through external measures initiation into the steps of Imagination, Inspiration, and Intuition, accompanied by tests towards catharsis. Cataleptic sleep as a last step of a more southern initiation; in more northern initiations a leading out into the zodiac. John the Evangelist as Lazarus initiated into the southern mysteries. The time designation ‘tenth hour’ as a hint at his initiation also into the northern mysteries. With the resurrection of Lazarus appearance of the initiation process in public as an indication that the incarnation of the Word of the world has occurred in Christ.

LECTURE 10

STOCKHOLM, 14 JANUARY 1910

Washing of the feet, scourging and crowning with thorns as steps of initiation by the spirit of the external Sun. The mortification of the physical body as an initiation by the Eternal in the human being. Identity of the Spirit of the Sun and of the Spirit of the Soul. Proliferation of the Spirit of the Sun from the body of Christ across the entire Earth. Gratitude and humility as precursors of the washing of the feet. Up to the crowning with thorns—northern initiation. Afterwards via crucifixion, entombment as well as resurrection and ascension—southern initiation. Three Christs: the historical, the mystical and the resurrected Christ in the astral atmosphere of the Earth.

LECTURE 11

STOCKHOLM, 15 JANUARY 1910

The Gospel of John as a path from the historical to the mystical Christ. The difference between the last words of Christ on the cross as a consequence of the different mystery streams of the evangelists. The mission of Christ on the background of the mission of the Earth: an outpouring of the power of compassion and love into humanity, transcending blood ties, end of Kali Yuga, return of the Christ in the astral sphere; theosophy as an aid to orientation in this time. The Christ-impulse as an impulse that unites and harmonizes humanity. The Gospel of John as a power that conveys this Christ-impulse.

APPENDIX

Documents

Notes

Rudolf Steiner’s Collected Works

Significant Events in the Life of Rudolf Steiner

Index

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

THE lecture cycle on the Gospel of John reproduced here was preceded by lecture cycles on the same subject in different cities: Berlin 1906 (The Gospel of St John) and Munich (Theosophy and the Gospel of John) (both GA 94) as well as Cologne (The Gospel of John as an Initiation Document) and Heidelberg (The Gospel of John) (both GA 97), Basle 1907 (Human development and the realization of Christ. Theosophy and Rosicrucianism—The Gospel of St John, GA 100), Hamburg 1908 (The Gospel of St John, GA 103) and Cassel 1909 (The Gospel of St John [in relation to the other three gospels, particularly St Luke], GA 112).

On the content of these lectures, see also the following volumes from the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner:

–Ancient Mysteries and Christianity, GA 87,

–Christianity as Mystical Fact, GA 8,

–The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity, GA 15,

–The Apocalypse of St John, GA 104,

–Reading the Pictures of the Apocalypse, GA 104a,

–The Gospel of Luke/According to Luke, GA 114,

–The Christ Impulse and the Development of Ego-Consciousness, GA 116,

–The Deeper Secrets of the Development of Humanity in Light of the Gospels, GA 117,

–The Event of the Appearance of Christ in the Etheric World, GA 118,

–The Gospel of Matthew, GA 123,

–Excursus on the Gospel of Mark/Background to the Gospel of St Mark, GA 124,

–From Jesus to Christ, GA 131,

–The Gospel of Mark/The Gospel of St Mark, GA 139,

–The Fifth Gospel. From the Akashic Research, GA 148.

In the context of the lectures given in the present volume, Rudolf Steiner also spoke about the two Jesus boys about whom he had first spoken publicly in Basle from 15 to 26 September, 1909, in The Gospel of Luke/According to Luke, GA 114. On this topic, see also The Spiritual Guidance of the Individual and Humanity, 1911, GA 15, lecture three.

INTRODUCTION

THE 13 lectures reproduced here are part of a lecture tour by Rudolf Steiner in Sweden from 2 to 17 January, 1910, with a total of 17 lectures. Five lectures were public, of these only the report by Markus Uppling of 9 January, 1910, exists and is printed in the present volume.

In the programme accompanying the Stockholm lecture cycle ‘The gospel of John and the three other gospels’, three public lectures were announced: for Sunday, 2 January, the lecture ‘The secret of death as a key to the riddle of life’, for Thursday, 6 January, the lecture ‘The cycle of the human being in the worlds of the senses, the soul and the spirit’ and for Sunday, 9 January, the lecture ‘The European mysteries and their initiates’ (see the facsimile of the programme in the Appendix). In the Communications for the members of the German section of the Theosophical Society, No. 10/1910, p. 26, the lecture ‘The secret of death as a key to the riddle of life’ in Norrköping is mentioned for 16 January, and for 17 January the lecture ‘Buddha and Christ’ in Lund.

All lectures were held by Rudolf Steiner in German. The lectures took place in the lecture hall of the Royal Swedish Academy of Science. They all started at 7pm. According to Anna Wager Gunnarsson’s memoirs kept in the Rudolf Steiner archive, around one hundred people ‘also from the rest of the North and from foreign countries’ participated.

In a lecture for members dated 9 March 1910 Rudolf Steiner speaks about the Stockholm cycle as follow:

With today’s lecture I am giving a kind of summary of that which has been heard in the different lectures of the winter, which has been a continuation of the observations regarding the gospels of Luke and Matthew and which has been communicated summarily here in connection with the lectures on the gospel of John as they have most recently been given in Stockholm. Through the way these lectures have been given you will have realized that everything has been laid out in them in such a way that they do not provide an explanation of the gospels in a confined sense but that it always emerges from the truths—which firstly are truths as such and secondly, are found with a correct understanding of the Christian documents in the gospels—that the other riddles of life can also be interpreted and illuminated on their basis in the most diverse ways.

If we go back behind the foundation of Christianity, we find two kinds, two forms of initiation: the initiation of the north, which has been characterized in more detail in the lectures held in Stockholm, and the initiation of the south, which has been characterized especially by linking it to the initiation processes of the ancient Egyptian civilization. People in the ancient world were presented with possibilities of entering the spiritual world from two sides. If the person to be initiated in the country of the ancient Egyptians wanted to reach the spiritual world, they descended into the ground of their own soul, descended beyond all that is present in the ordinary life of the soul as thought, feeling, will and so on. There they found that from which the soul itself originated: the divine existence of the world. A descent below those regions of the soul that are shone through and penetrated by the ‘I’, this was the essential aspect of the Egyptian or southern initiation as such. A stepping out, a merging of the individual with the appearances of the world in an ecstatic way, on the other hand, was the decisive aspect of the northern initiation, especially of the Germanic mysteries of the druids and trotten. It has already been characterized how these two kinds of initiations united, and how the Christian initiation constitutes, as it were, the higher union of the ecstatic initiation of the north and the mystic contemplation in the initiation of the south. With this, however, we have hinted at a deeper foundation of the secrets of the world that runs through all existence. Strictly speaking any discussion, even of such a tremendous fact as the union of the two forms of initiation of the ancient world in the Christian initiation, is an example of an even more comprehensive, great law that penetrates all human existence and that at the same time weaves through all existence of external worldly appearances, as far as human beings can grasp it. We find this everywhere: we meet the aspects of a duality as opposites. Such aspects of a duality we see facing each other as opposites in the northern and in the southern initiation. This is only one example how opposites, we could also say polarities, meet us in the existence of the world. And the other thing, how these two forms of initiation flow together and enter, as it were, a spiritual marriage in the Christian initiation, is an example for how opposites, and dualities in general, unite. This happens all the time, that units divide into dualities to foster further development and that dualities again unite into a unity. In an external way we were able to point first at a great, tremendous fact that reaches, as it were, beyond the evolution of humanity that illustrates this division of a unity into duality and the reunification of the duality into a unity.*

The front page of the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported, among other things, as follows about the public lecture on 2 January:

Even those who do not honour theosophical ideas had to be carried away by the strength, the warmth, the deep conviction with which the lecture was given. Dr Steiner, who is a lean, clean-shaven man with an almost ascetic appearance, began his speech calmly, seriously and with moderation. His left hand played with his pince-nez that was dangling from a cord, while the right now and then extended a gesture into the room. But with the advancing of the lecture, his voice became warmer and higher. The right hand did not suffice for his gestures, both hands were extended, and the two hands helped to form symbolically for the audience what the speaker wanted to illustrate. The voice rose and the speaking took on a more rapid tempo, while it flowed without stopping in perfectly formed, beautiful sentences as only a born speaker can produce. And when the last words with a quote by Goethe had been hurled forth with an enormous pathos, the auditorium sat silently and very moved before the applause followed.†

On 12 January Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture in addition to the present cycle—according to Christoph Lindenberg (Rudolf Steiner—a chronicle, Stuttgart 1988, p. 289) at 5.30pm (no source)—where he spoke about the appearance of the Christ in the etheric (for further information see the notes on this lecture). The few notes by Marie von Sivers have been reprinted in this volume (see also the facsimile reprint in the Appendix). Rudolf Steiner again took up the content of this inserted lecture in the eleventh lecture of the series on 15 January 1910 that is also reprinted in this volume.

Only a few days after this lecture tour, on 22 January 1910, Rudolf Steiner’s father died in Horn (Lower Austria).

Hans-Christian Zehnter

* From: The Christ-impulse and the development of ‘I’-consciousness, GA 116.

† From: ‘Lifvet och döden’, Dagens Nyheter, No. 14249, Stockholmsupplagan, Måndagen, 3. Januari 1910, p. 1, translation from the Swedish: Rudolf Steiner archive; see also document in the Appendix p. 95).

LECTURE 1

STOCKHOLM, 3 JANUARY 1910

HIGHLY esteemed attendees!

You have asked me to speak about the Gospel of John in the context of the three other gospels in this cycle. That means, you have [embraced] the view1 that the theosophical world view and its way of thinking includes much that can contribute to the understanding of Christianity. These lectures will have to show that this is indeed the case, and that the gospels, especially the Gospel of John, have a special mission for human beings in our time. In particular, they will show how Christianity has developed gradually from distant periods of time, how it has a long future ahead of it, and how theosophy unlocks a new area for research on the gospels by the insights which it is called to reveal.

Indeed, when we look at the position taken by the leaders of the modern spiritual movement towards the gospels, we can only characterize it as increasingly deprecatory. If no sources existed other than those already known, this would well be explicable.

Now what are the gospels supposed to offer a person approaching them? They should provide an illumination, an explanation of the great event which has occurred in the development of humanity: the Christ-event. However, when people of the present day approach the gospels to this end, they do not find a satisfactory presentation of this event. Instead of one presentation they find four, they find differences and contradictions in the gospels. For example: Matthew and Luke narrate [the story of Jesus’ childhood in different ways].2

Consequently, people say: This does not agree, it cannot be true; and our present-day criticism tries to show that [gap in transcript].

It is well known that the authority of the gospels is gradually dwindling under the influence of the above-mentioned viewpoint, and that people believe more and more that it is possible to extract a kind of shared basis from the four gospels, and how people in certain radical circles are even inclined to dismiss the entire thing. The gospel that speaks most deeply to our heart has fared worst in this.3 People say: A historical core can be found in the first three gospels. But the Gospel of John differs so much from the others that it must be assumed that it was written much later and therefore it is without significance. In other circles a certain historical significance is attributed to the synoptics, but the Gospel of John is believed to be a kind of hymn through which the first Christians wanted to express their belief in Christ.

From an entirely external perspective we might pose a historical question: Did people during the first centuries of Christianity possess the gospels, did they really study them? The answer is: even in the Middle Ages, the gospels were not generally read, i.e., studied, in the way they have been for the last few centuries. Only the printers have made it possible that everyone can read the word of the gospel.

When we go back to earlier centuries, we find that only a few people were able to obtain the gospels, and that those few were the ones who were the most educated, the most knowledgeable people: leaders and teachers. Curiously enough, these people did not object to the contradictions which arise between the individual gospels. And if we were to name the predominant feeling that arose from these differences, then it would be deep gratitude for the fact that there was not one document, but precisely four. Contradictions were found only at that moment when the gospels became more popular; only then were people able to be irked by the contradictions.

Should these educated and highly developed adepts of Christianity really have possessed such little insight, such little reason and understanding to be grateful for the contradictions? No, this is impossible. There must be another explanation for this significant fact.

When we try to look into the souls of the first believers of Christianity, we find that the feeling they had towards the Christ mystery was that this is something that one cannot understand without further effort, and thus they told themselves that it was good that four delineators have described what they understood of it. If, for example, we photograph this lectern from this side, then someone else may also photograph it from the opposite side; then we have two photographs of it. In the same way one can photograph it from the two other sides. Then we have four pictures of the lectern. If you put together a picture of the whole based on these four pictures, you can say that you know what the lectern looks like.

In the same way the great Christ-event has been described by four individuals and we have to take these four pictures together. Then we can ascend step by step to a total understanding of the event.

Now the question arises: How can there be four different documents? What does each gospel want to say about the great Christevent? Each gospel starts from the premise that this event cannot be grasped through external cognition and that it is necessary to look at it from the viewpoint of an initiate. Each gospel has been written from the perspective of a seer.

There were four kinds of initiation in pre-Christian times, four schools of seers. And only if we consider that there were four kinds of initiation, we can grasp that each gospel has been written on the basis of a particular initiation.

What exactly is an initiate? Someone whose forces of apprehension are not confined to external reality, who has developed their spiritual organs in such a way as to be able to look into the spiritual worlds.

Now only that which is already present in the form of innate abilities can be developed in the human being. We distinguish three basic forces in the human being: the force of thought, the force of feeling and the force of the will. In the ordinary human life these three basic forces are only developed up to a certain degree. In an initiate they were much inflated through what are called the mysteries. But since it was found that the three forces could only be developed evenly up to a certain level in one and the same person, the candidates for initiation were put in three groups depending on their innate abilities. In each of these only one of the three forces was especially developed. In the Egyptian, Persian and Greek mysteries it was said: We train certain people in such a way that the force of thinking becomes particularly strong [gap in transcript] until they become seers [gap in transcript] in other people the force of the will [gap in transcript].

This resulted in three groups of initiates in the Ancient world:

the initiates of thinking—the ‘wise’,

the initiates of feeling—the ‘therapists’ or ‘healers’,

the initiates of the will—the ‘magicians’.

These initiations were one-sided, but precisely because of a [renunciation],4 resignation, of the other forces the individual initiate was able to develop the highest powers in their domain. The wise had the great overview over the world, they were able to search the spiritual world and knew its laws; the therapist healed people; not by external remedies but with the help of their spiritual and psychic powers; and the magician ruled the physical world and knew its laws.

To unite these three categories of initiates, a fourth category was formed. These were the individuals in whom their personality was not as highly developed but in whom all three forces worked in harmony with each other: the harmonious people. They were always heard whenever anything of importance had to be decided.

There is a deep secret underneath this. What was the opinion regarding the fact that people turned to those who were less advanced with respect to the individual forces? It was well known in the ancient mysteries that everything can be found in nature. Wasps had long invented paper, for their nest is the true paper. In the wasp there is thus the wisdom that the human being has acquired later. In this way there is also wisdom in the human being and through this the human being is ruler over the forces of nature. But there is more of the divine in the less initiated than in those more deeply initiated. The initiated ‘human being’ was the fourth group of initiates.

We meet these four categories of initiates in the four gospels. Each initiate can only research the great fact from a certain angle: the wise—John—from one side of the Christ-event; the magician—Mark—from another perspective; and the healer—Luke—again from a different angle. The harmonious human being Matthew has an overview over the whole. Wisdom goes far, much beyond everything which the human being can reach. This is why John has as his symbol the eagle who flies high above earthly events. And the healer, what kind of forces does this person want to develop? Not external remedies, but [he worked] as a psychic healer who [developed] the forces of sacrificial love.5 Human beings become healers to the degree that they shed egoism and become able to sacrifice themselves for others: the ability to sacrifice themselves, that is the nature of the healer in the psychic realm; if someone is so far developed that they give everything for the other person, then they are a healer. In this way the Evangelist Luke. That is why tradition says that Luke’s Gospel was written by a doctor.

For this reason, the symbol of Luke: the sacrificial bull, that means, the personality of a human being who sacrifices themselves. The magician finally aims to develop the forces of the will. In this way the Evangelist Mark; [his] symbol [is] the lion.6 Therefore the lion has been attributed to the writer of the Gospel of Mark. Where these three forces work together in harmony, we have the human being. The human being is attributed to Matthew as a symbol.

This is the reason why the believers of Christianity were so grateful that there were four gospels.

What is the Christ-event? A confluence of all preceding philosophies and religious streams of humanity. All earlier streams of humanity united in Palestine; and they were expressed in the gospels according to the different types of initiation of the one or the other evangelist.

Which were the main streams of the spiritual life during the pre-Christian era? There was firstly a stream which had experienced a powerful development and its conclusion shortly before Christ: the ancient wisdom of the holy Rishis in India. They taught a wisdom which had existed before our physical world existed: the primordial tradition of human tradition, the ancient memory of a wisdom from which the world emanated. According to this ‘ancient wisdom’7 the Rishis said to themselves: That which lives in me is only a symbol of primordial wisdom which has created these images out of itself; everything that we see is only a reflection of this primordial wisdom, of prehistoric spirituality, a looking back onto the spiritual world; the outer world is only an illusion, Maya; human beings are called to descend into the physical world.

It was possible to learn from this cultural stream to sacrifice the sensual and to give everything to gain wisdom. In the person of Gautama Buddha, six centuries before Christ, this spiritual stream found its summary and conclusion. That which Buddha was able to give to humanity was destined to flow into the event in Palestine to continue flowing with it. This is particularly presented in the gospel of the healer, in the Gospel of Luke.

In the ancient—not historical—Persian culture we find an entirely opposite cultural stream, represented by Zarathustra or Zoroaster.8 This stream is best understood in the following way: the [ancient] Indian said: The outer world is an illusion. Zarathustra pointed out to humanity that this world is not worthless. ‘This world,’ he said, ‘is the outer expression of a spirit. Look up to the Sun, for example. In the warmth flowing from the Sun lies the physical reality of the Sun. The Sun is the benefactress of the entire Earth. But just as human beings stand before us and behind them the spirit, the aura, in the same way there is behind the body of the Sun the aura of the Sun, the great aura, the great spirit, Ahura-Mazda, Ormuzd. The Sun-spirit is behind everything physical. The physical is therefore no illusion, no Maya, but an expression of the divine. The human being’s task is to extract the spiritual from the riddle of the physical.’

’I want to speak,’9 said Zarathustra, ‘about what is the highest in the world, and no more shall the evil forces have power to declare any untruth. I want to speak of the one who is everywhere in the world, of Ahura-Mazda I want to speak. [Those who do not hearken to my words will experience terrible things when the cycle of Earth evolution] will be fulfilled.’10

This spiritual stream, according to which we are to work with joy on the physical plane, has been included in Christianity and continues to flow with it. It contains an entire cosmology and is described by Mark.

The third stream that has flowed into Christianity is the one that has been prepared by the ancient Hebrew people. What is the part of the ancient Hebrew people in the entire civilization? What did this people have to contribute?

Just as individuals grow through gradual and continuous development, so do peoples. The four limbs of the human being have come into existence in a very complicated way.11 When the child leaves the womb, only the physical birth is taking place. However, not all its bodies are complete with this. Until its seventh year it is, as it were, enclosed in its maternal etheric body. With the change of teeth, that is in its seventh year, its etheric birth happens. At fourteen years, when the ether body is complete, the astral birth takes place, and only after the astral body has reached complete maturity at twenty-one years, the fourth body, the ‘I’, emerges. The evolution of the individual peoples takes place in the same way.

We differentiate thus with the Hebrews three great periods: the first from Abraham to David; the second from David until the Babylonian Captivity; and the third from the latter period until the time of Jesus, where the ‘I’ emerged—just as with the individual person at twenty-one years. From this people Jesus received His physical body as His genetic inheritance. This is described in detail in the Gospel of Matthew.

If you know and understand Christianity completely, you also know the pre-Christian spiritual streams which Christianity has absorbed and whose results it contains. Buddha has not stopped working when he died in ancient India, six hundred years before our reckoning of time, and in the same way Zarathustra was prepared to allow his part in the development to flow into Christianity.

Each gospel corresponds to one aspect of the human being. Matthew describes foremost the physical aspect of the Christ-event, Mark the etheric, Luke the astral and John that part which falls under the ‘I’.

John’s Gospel is a great study of the spiritual human being;12 emanating from the deepest initiation, this gospel is like a Sun over the other gospels, the great message of the spiritual human being to humanity. Luke’s Gospel is a powerful depiction of the life of the human being in the world of the senses—in the world of feelings—in sacrificial service; Mark’s Gospel is a tremendous cosmology, and Matthew’s Gospel is a philosophy of history.

In this way the four gospels unite, and in this way Buddha and Zarathustra, the ancient Hebrew and the ancient Egyptian culture arise again in Christianity. And this is how from theosophy it will shine towards us what outer research has lost: the truth of the gospels. Theosophy exists in order to win back the gospels and to show us that Christianity is not at the end, but at the beginning of its course. Theosophy will become an instrument of bringing the hidden treasures of Christianity to light again.

LECTURE 2

STOCKHOLM, 4 JANUARY 1910

MY esteemed attendees!

The Gospel of John differs insofar from the other three gospels in that it is ascribed to a direct disciple of the Christ Jesus while the other three are ascribed in name to indirect disciples of the Christ. One consequence of this is that we have to look for the deepest wisdom of Christianity in John’s Gospel.

Now the question arises for us: How must theosophy behave towards the gospels and their authenticity? Theosophy cannot accept anything as true that is not confirmed by occult research. We would not be able to take any random wisdom from a document. Theosophy can only build upon its own basis, it can only build on those experiences which are won by looking into the spiritual sources of the presence as well as the past. The only truly historical document for theosophy is that which we call the Akasha Chronicle, that is, the spiritual documentation that the seer can see. When we have gathered information from this spiritual document, we can then compare these with what the historical documents, that is, the gospels, can provide. And no tenet is accepted by the occult researcher because it can be found in any written document, but because it has been found to be correct on the basis of our own research.

Yesterday it has been remarked by way of introduction that in the event of Palestine the spiritual streams of pre-Christian times have united—and that, as we will now see, in a higher form in the personality of Christ Jesus. This personality is unbelievably complicated. How is such a personality made possible who is able to take into His personality everything that has gone before and in it to forge it into a higher unity?

In the Gospel of John Christ is depicted as the embodied, the incarnated Word of the world, as the incarnated Logos. In order to understand this even to a degree, we have to go far back in time until the arising of the first civilizations on our Earth. 600 years prior to the event in Palestine the powerful spiritual stream which we call the Indian, had found its climax and conclusion in the person of Gautama Buddha. But the same Buddha who had worked in India, was in a certain form present in Palestine at the time of Christ Jesus. What spiritual science means when using the term ‘Buddha’ is not a particular person, but a certain honour or office. Just as the individual person during earthly life develops more and more and acquires ever higher offices, an individuality can rise through several incarnations up to the office of Buddha, to the honour of Buddha.

Prior to this, the same individuality had not been a Buddha, but a Bodhisattva13 through many incarnations. What is that? The Bodhisattvas are endowed with particular tasks. They are teachers and leaders of humanity. Humanity in its entirety has gone through different stages.

The human being has reached the consciousness of today over the course of time.14 Before this, our own souls had different characteristics. The human being acquired reason etc. over the course of time; the human being had previously been endowed with other characteristics. If we look back to Lemurian times we find a certain dull, clairvoyant realization in the human being. The entire human life was no spiritual self-consciousness. Hazy pictures arose in the soul in those ancient times. This is why it was impossible to influence people in the same way as today, but only in a way that is comparable with an intuition or suggestion. And that which was communicated to them was not grasped with the mind. The leaders and teachers of humanity worked through suggestion, through intuition, through their immediate presence, through the pupil’s looking to the great teacher.