Lecture XI

This aspect too must give us deeper insight into the structure of St. Matthew's Gospel. We shall then feel profound reverence for a Gospel from which, as from no other, we can learn unmistakably how the disciples of Christ Jesus were the first to receive teaching that was directed to the Ego itself. We picture Christ's disciples standing around Him and perceive how the forces of the Cosmos are working through the human body He bore. We picture Him guiding His disciples in a way that enables them to acquire the knowledge accessible to all who are approaching Initiation. We hear of human situations formed around Him. This is what makes St. Matthew's Gospel seem so near to us in a human sense. Through this Gospel we learn to know the man Jesus of Nazareth, the bearer of the Christ; we learn to know what Christ accomplished through His descent into the nature of Man. Even happenings in the heavenly worlds are presented in terms of human situations and relationships in the Gospel of St. Matthew.