Lecture X

But the Jews absorbed a very great deal from the neighbouring peoples. This too is comprehensible. Of all religions in antiquity, theirs was the subtlest. They believed—and this is well-nigh incredible to the modern mind that Jehovah is an Earth God, who works in the Moon-forces that are connected with the Earth and who is therefore also a Moon God, as described in the book Occult Science. It seems incredible to-day that men can ever have looked towards the centre of the Earth when they spoke of their God, but it was indeed so. Nevertheless the impulse to look upwards was, in the nature of things, not entirely absent from the Jews, above all when they saw the neighbouring peoples worshipping what comes from above. But the great difference between those who had knowledge of the Jewish secret doctrine and those who had not, was this.—The former knew that it was a temptation to be obedient to laws other than the laws of those forces which work from the Earth as far as the Moon-sphere. (Certain elements that come to light again to-day in our own spiritual-scientific teachings were present in ancient Hebraic wisdom). But as the time of the Mystery of Golgotha approached, Hebrew culture was veering more and more from its original direction and looking upwards for the Gods.