John the Baptist and Earth's Spiritual Transformation

With the knowledge gathered from these detailed studies of the Fifth Gospel, we will now try to enter more deeply still into all that is connected with the Mystery of Golgotha. To-day we will think, primarily, of the figure of John the Baptist and of certain aspects of his mission. To understand John the Baptist and Christ Jesus' relation to him (there are indications of this, too, in the Gospel of St. John) it will be necessary to think of the character of the spiritual life from which John the Baptist had issued. It is, of course, the world of ancient Hebrew culture. And now let us consider once again all the essential features of this culture. It had, as we know, a special mission in the evolution of humanity. We remember that Earth-evolution has proceeded from the Saturn-, Sun- and Moon-evolutions and that during this Earth-evolution the Ego, or “I” is added to those principles of man's being—physical body, etheric body, astral body—which came over from the earlier stages. The “I”, however, cannot unfold as an active principle all at once. Indeed the purpose of the Whole of Earth-evolution is to enable the “I” to develop in such a way that man may find his place in the stream of Eternity. Realising this, we must regard the Earth as the theatre in the Cosmos that is allotted to man for the development of the “I”. Ancient Hebrew culture venerated Jahveh or Jehovah az the Being of the higher Hierarchies under whose influence it had been established. The biblical story of Creation shows very clearly how the first Elohim—Jahve or Jehovah—issues from the sevenfold Elohim, the sevenfold host of the Beings of that Hierarchy. By way of comparison lot us say that just as the whole human organism develops into its highest expression in the head, so are the seven Elohim represented in one of themselves, in Jahve or Jehovah who becomes the leading Being in Earth-evolution. Ancient Hebrew culture recognised this and worshipped Jehovah, seeing in him that Being of the higher Hierarchies with whom man must be related in order to unfold the “I”. Ancient Hebrew culture represented a definite stage, in the process of the development of the “I”' in mankind and the influence of Jehovah was felt to be such that by establishing relationship with him, the “I” could gradually be awakened. This is connected with what I said in the lectures at Leipzig. ( Lecture-Course XXXI. Christ and the Spiritual World)