Lecture V

When Christ Jesus went out of the loneliness He felt transported above everything He had experienced and learned from His twelfth year onwards; He felt that the Christ Spirit had united with all that had been alive in Him before His twelfth year. He felt no longer any connection with what had become old and withered in humanity. He was indifferent even to the speech used in His environment—and to begin with, he kept silence. He wandered around Nazareth and still further afield, visiting many places He had known previously as Jesus of Nazareth. And then a very singular thing happened.—Remember, please, that I am relating the contents of the Fifth Gospel and there would be no point in looking for contradictory passages in the other four Gospels. I am narrating from the Fifth Gospel.—In quiet reticence, as if having nothing in common with the environment, Christ Jesus wandered, to begin with, from one dwelling-place to another, working among the people and with the people wherever He went. Ahriman's words concerning bread had left a deep impression upon Him. And everywhere He found people who already knew Him, with whom He had worked before. They recognised Him and He found among them those to whom Ahriman actually had access, simply because it was necessary for them to turn stones into bread—to turn money, metals, into bread. His presence was not, after all, essential among those who observed the moral precepts given by Hillel or by other teachers. Christ Jesus consorted with those whom the other Gospels call the publicans and the sinners for it was their lot to make stones into bread. He was constantly among these men.