X. Jesus and His Historical Background

The existence of such sects makes it possible to understand how far the time was ripe for the comprehension of the Mystery of Christ. In the Mysteries a man was artificially prepared for the dawning in his consciousness, at the appropriate time, of an awareness of the spiritual world. Within the community of the Essenes or Therapeutæ it was by an appropriate mode of life that the soul sought to become ripe for the awakening of the higher man. A further step forward is that man struggles through to a feeling that a human individuality may have evolved to higher and higher stages of perfection in repeated earth lives. One who had arrived at a glimpse of this truth would also be able to feel that in Jesus a being of lofty spirituality had appeared. The loftier the spirituality, the greater the possibility of accomplishing something of importance. Thus the individuality of Jesus could become capable of accomplishing the deed which the Evangelists so mysteriously indicate in the Baptism by John, and which, by the way in which they speak of it, they so clearly point out as of the utmost importance. The personality of Jesus became able to receive the Christ into its own soul, the Logos Who was made flesh in that soul. Thenceforward the Ego of Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ, and the outer personality was the vehicle of the Logos. The event of the Ego of Jesus becoming the Christ is enacted in the Baptism by John. During the period of the Mysteries, union with the Spirit was only for those who were to be initiated. Among the Essenes, a whole community cultivated a life by means of which all its members were able to attain to the mystical union. In the coming of Christ something—namely, His deeds—was placed before the whole of humanity, so that it might share in the mystical union.