Lecture II

Thus we see how differentiations act in humanity, for differentiation must come about. For that which by earlier events has been thrust down to a lower condition is raised up once more through special events in the course of human development. On another occasion a particularly important uplifting took place in the evolution of humanity, one which exoterically will always be incomprehensible; for this reason people have really ceased to reflect upon, it, but esoterically it can be fully explained. There were some who had developed very quickly from the strata of the Western population, who had gradually wrestled their way up from the lowest rungs of the ladder, but who had not risen very high in intellectual development, but had remained comparatively humble and simple men, chosen ones as it were, who could only be uplifted at a certain time by a mighty impulse which reflected itself in them; these were those who are described as the twelve Apostles of Jesus. They were the cast-off extract of the lower castes which did not reach India. From them had to be taken the substance for the disciples of Christ Jesus. [We are not here referring to previous or succeeding incarnations of the individualities of the Apostles, but solely to the physical ancestry of the bodies in which the personalities of the Apostles were incarnated. The succession of incarnations and the physical line of heredity must always be distinguished.]