Lecture II-IV

Then he speaks to the people of the second cultural epoch, the age of Zarathustra. He speaks to the followers of the great Zarathustra who have recorded their wisdom in the teachings of Hermes, who have preserved for us an echo of Zarathustra's teaching. Indications are given everywhere in these writings that people should not develop a love for dreamy wandering, that they should get to like life in the physical, sensible world. They are to see the sun as the expression of a being, the spirit of the sun, and they should look upon the stars as the bodies of the spirits who populate space. For this reason it was the concern of Zarathustra to show the physical-material world as the expression of the spirit. In this way the cultivation of the earth's fields should be like a cultivation of the physical body of God, who stands behind the physical world. The ancient Hebrew nation that existed parallel to the ancient Persian culture also looked up to this God. They also had a religious service to Zarathustra, which is indicated in Abraham's encounter with Melchizedek.