Supplements to Member Lectures

GA 246 — 7 February 1914, Hanover

61. Preliminary Stages to the Mystery of Golgotha. The Fifth Gospel

Connections have taken place in the spiritual worlds between the spirit of Christ and that spiritual being which later incarnated in the body of the Nathanish boy Jesus.

These connections took place three times. Once in the Lemurian time, twice later in the Atlantean time. One cannot say embodiments or incarnations. These three connections were three embodiments of the Christ in him who later incarnated on earth in the Nathanian boy Jesus. These three embodiments took place in the spiritual realm.

If this third union had not taken place in the spiritual realm of the Christ-spirit with the soul-being of the Nathanian boy Jesus, the astral body of the human being would have fallen into a complete chaos of thinking, feeling and willing, into madness. So that this could not happen, this third sacrifice of the Christ was necessary; through it, harmonizing powers radiated in.

So three sacrifices of the Christ-Spirit took place in the spiritual worlds; this sacrifice just described was the third sacrifice that was still made by the Christ in the spiritual worlds. Only the fourth sacrifice was performed by him in the physical world.

Symbolically, this sanctification of the Christ with the soul of the Nathanian boy Jesus was represented in the angel in the symbol of St. George or the archangel Michael, as he slays the dragon. In Greek and Roman mythology, we find the same event depicted in Apollo, as he worked in the wild, dragon-like smoke that surrounded the mountain, which he transformed into the vapor of Pythia.

The fifth gospel can be extracted from the Akashic Chronicle. (Christ-Jesus' own words tell us: “I am with you always.”)

There are three distinct periods in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, ... From his 12th to about his 17th year ... He worked in the trade that was practiced in the house of his biological father; that was the carpenter's trade.

On his travels, he would sit and chat with people in the evenings after his work was done. People loved him because he emanated an all-encompassing power of love that was so real that they felt it immediately. If he had been away from them for a long time, it could happen that he came in as if through the door and sat down with them and was then in their midst as if he were with them in the flesh. - They all had this vision who had sat with him earlier and listened to his conversations.

Only such deep emotional pain as he had gone through can be transformed into such effective powers of love. The first great pain that Jesus of Nazareth had gone through was that of Judaism's decline. The second great pain he had to go through was that of the descended paganism. He was approaching his 24th year when he came to the Gentiles.

The pagan sacrificial altars had been abandoned by their priests. - When Jesus of Nazareth came to them, the people thought that he had been sent to them as a new sacrificial priest who would restore their sacrificial cult. They were all gathered at the place of sacrifice and expected him to perform the sacred service. Instead, however, Jesus of Nazareth had a vision. He fell down at the pagan altar. And when the people saw this, they fled from there.

Demonic powers were connected with these pagan sacrificial services; all these demons had taken possession of the people. Jesus saw this as his body lay there: he saw the demons fleeing with the people. This was the second great pain, that he now knew that even the pagan sacrificial services were no longer suitable for humanity. He heard the inspiring voice of the great Bath-Kol. Translated into German, the words are these:

Amen
The evils prevail,
Witnesses of dissolving selfhood,
Self-guilt generated by others,
Experienced in daily bread,
In which heaven's will does not rule,
Since man parted from your kingdom
And forgot your name,
You fathers in the heavens.

This was given for the first time at the laying of the foundation stone, this cosmic “Our Father”. If you meditate on it and compare it with the “Our Father” as it was later given to humanity by Christ Jesus ...

The third great pain came when he had to realize that development in the school of the Essaeans was not possible for all people. He was often together with the Essaeans and was welcome in their order and familiar with their endeavors. (Many Essaeans, after passing through the three first degrees, had achieved certain connections with the spiritual worlds). Then one day, when he saw Lucifer and Ahriman fleeing away at the Essaean gate and fleeing towards the rest of humanity, he knew that although Lucifer and Ahriman could not have access to them through the life that the Essaeans led, they were driven towards the rest of humanity precisely because of it.

Now, shortly before John's baptism, Jesus of Nazareth had an important conversation with his stepmother or foster mother. While this mother had initially understood Jesus of Nazareth very little, in the end she understood him better and better. In this meaningful conversation, he spoke about these three great pains, the pains of all mankind. It entered the soul of the stepmother.

Now something very strange happened: the real mother, his biological mother, who had been dead for almost 18 years, now united with the stepmother. As a result, this stepmother or foster mother became as if rejuvenated; she walked around with the soul of the real mother of the Nathanian boy Jesus.

During this conversation, however, the ego of Zarathustra had now left the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. The Zarathustra-I had really gone away with that conversation! The three bodies now went down the path to the Jordan, where John's baptism took place. From the outside there was no sign of him; he looked the same as before - the same noble countenance. Only now it was as if the wisdom of the whole world was inside.

On the way, he had three encounters. First, two Essaeans met him; they asked him, “Where are you going?” - He answered them, you can't really say, because the Zarathustra ego was out. It sounded from his mouth: “To where souls of your kind still do not want to look, where the pain of [humanity] can find the rays of the forgotten light.”

They did not understand him.

They did not understand him. They realized that he did not know them. As personalities, as he had known them before with his ego, he could not know them either, because his ego had gone out. - And they asked him: “Jesus of Nazareth, do you not know us?”

And again it came out of his mouth: "You are like stray lambs, (? but I was the shepherd's son ?) from whom you ran away too soon ... (? it is so long ago that you ran away from me ?). You have the tempter's mark on you; he struck you after you ran away from me. He has made your wool glisten with his fire ... pierce my gaze."

They answered him: "Have we not shown the tempter the door? He has no more part in us."

And it sounded back from him: "Well, you showed him the door, (? there he ran, because you drove him out to the other people ?); he grins at you from all sides ... (? you believe that you have become higher ?); you have not become higher, but by humiliating the others you only appear higher. — Only the other souls you have diminished, only by this you appear greater."

Then there appeared to them in a great vision, as if behind on the horizon, the great face of Jesus of Nazareth, like a mirage, which filled the whole room, and from this enlarged face came the words: “Vain is your striving, because empty is your heart (pride in the shell, since humility is deceptive?)”.

Then the vision disappeared. Jesus of Nazareth had left them in the meantime. Only when they looked around did they still see him, already a little further along the path.

From then on, the two Essaeans spoke very little; they became increasingly monosyllabic; they spoke about this experience to no one; they kept quiet about it.

The second encounter was with a man who was in great despair. From the three shells of Jesus of Nazareth the question rang out to him: "Where has your soul been led? I saw you many millennia ago, when you were different."

And the despairing man replied: “I was in high places as a human being in this life; I climbed from office to office in the human ladder, further and further, and I said to myself: ”What a gifted person you are," and I was proud of my abilities. “What a rare person I am that I have made it to such high dignities through my rare qualities and abilities.” - A being came to me at night in a dream, and I felt a sense of shame as the being approached me and asked me this question; but it asked me this question as if I were asking it myself: “Who made you great? - was the question. And the being itself answered: “I have made you great, but you are mine in return.” (Today we would say that it was Lucifer who showed him that he had made him into this arrogant person.)

The desperate man went on to say: "Now I have left my ministry; I said to myself: I don't belong there. - Now I wander about, seeking and not knowing what I seek."

Then the being that had appeared to him in a dream at night stood between him and Jesus, so that Jesus also saw it. When the desperate man regained consciousness, the being disappeared; but Jesus had also gone on his way and was only seen by the desperate man from a distance. The desperate man had to continue wandering.

Now the third encounter Jesus had on his descent to the Jordan was with a man who was afflicted with leprosy. The words came out of Jesus' mouth to this leper: "Where has your soul gone? I saw you many thousands of years ago, and you were different then."

The leper replied: "Men cast me out because leprosy came upon me; I wandered about in the world, feeding on the crumbs they threw me. On my wanderings I came into a forest at night; there I saw a light shining from a tree; seized by this magical light, I came closer; something came out of the tree, and a carcass stood before me. And Death, who stood before me in the form of a skeleton, said to me: ‘I am you, I feed on you’ - and I was overcome with great fear. Then the skeleton said to me: 'Why are you afraid? You once loved me. ... And I fell asleep under the tree, and when I awoke the next morning, I realized that from then on my leprosy had increased, and so I wandered about in the world. - (? Now he, Ahriman, transformed himself into a beautiful archangel ?) In today's theosophical language we would say: It was Ahriman who had appeared to him ... because he had brought the earthly, outer life, i.e. actually death. - So far from the fifth gospel ...

When we consider how popes and cardinals and so on argued at the councils, we see that nothing was understood in the superconscious about the Christ-Jesus. Even in our time, people are still inclined to imagine Christianity in a less concrete way; they always like to think of the “world teacher”, a great “Lord Teacher”. The effectiveness of Christ was a real deed; it worked deep into the hidden depths of the human soul.

Just two examples illustrate how the Christ was effective through action: anyone who knows history knows how much the victory of Constantine over Maxentius brought about changes; not only in the history of Europe, but also in America. On October 28, 312, Constantine won the victory over Maxentius, who ruled Rome at the time, at the gates of Rome.

It was not military valor that was decisive here, but both had had a dream, under whose inspiration they acted: Maxentius consulted the Sibylline books and also consulted the oracle, who sent him the spell: If Maxentius moves out of Rome, he will defeat Rome's greatest enemy. (The “enemy of Rome” was himself!) If he had stayed in Rome, well entrenched with his army of 100,000 men, he would have been invincible. Now he did the biggest stupid thing he could have done by leaving Rome. - So now Constantine was able to defeat him with his army, which was four times smaller - 25,000 men.

Constantine had had a dream: with the symbol of the cross, he would be victorious at the gates of Rome. And he had the symbol of the cross carried forward in battle and defeated Maxentius, despite his four times weaker army.

It was not military tactics that were decisive here, but the deed of Christ. We find the same fact confirmed in French history, with the girl from Orleans, the Maid of Orleans, who acted according to her vision. By saving “her king” and giving victory to the French, she did something that completely changed the map of Europe.

We are living in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period, in which that which previously only worked in the subconscious depths of the soul must be understood.

[I hope that if we succeed in placing this building in front of the souls of the present, much of what we want to express will also penetrate the souls of the present through this building. It should be our endeavor to really become aware in this building of the task we have for our spiritual movement. The fourth post-Atlantean age has brought two kinds of buildings: the Greek temple, which is essentially intended as the dwelling place of the god, for the spirits of ... It is complete even without people, it is there to enclose the spiritual world; the Gothic building, whose forms cannot be imagined without the believing congregation, had a different task.

The fifth post-Atlantean age needed a new form. However, we do not have the means at our disposal to immediately create something similar to the Greek temple or the Gothic cathedral, because the working conditions at that time were completely different. Human labor has a much greater value today than it did back then - in some respects - and it really has already cost many sacrifices to build our structure. Nevertheless, we can only make a first attempt at a design that is appropriate to what we want. May the great sacrifices be joined by the (relatively) small ones that are still necessary!

People who are not anthroposophists will misunderstand this building at first, but they will perhaps get used to the anthroposophical idea all the more quickly when they are physically embodied in the building. Our building is not an enclosing structure like the cathedral, but - although closed on all sides - it is intended to point to the spiritual world through the nature of its forms by opening up on all sides.

Neither the deity nor the congregation is enclosed in the building. But the columns and architraves will evoke the feeling in our congregation: Physically we are limited; but this limitation is one that lifts itself, beyond which we rise into the spiritual world.

My belief, which is more than a mere belief, is that when we return in the next incarnation, we will find this building with the two domes and so on many times in the world.

(Doctor Steiner named the year 2086 as the one in which one would experience this.)]