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7th Holy Night / Contemplation and Study
The Gospel of St. Luke ---- Lecture 6 ---- Part 3
a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner on September 20, 1909 in Basel, Switzerland
It was for this reason that the Hebrew teachings formed such a wonderful complement to the cosmological knowledge of the Persians, for they introduced the element of morality into revelations given from without, thus making it possible for the concept of ‘guilt’, of ‘human guilt’ to be imbued with meaning. Before the introduction of the Hebrew teaching, all that could be said of an evil man was that he was possessed by evil forces. The proclamation of the Ten Commandments made it necessary to distinguish between men who obeyed the Law and others who did not. Thus there arose the concept of human guilt. How it was introduced into the evolution of humanity can be grasped if we consider a record proving what a tragic uncertainty still prevailed as to the exact meaning of guilt. Study the Book of Job and you will discern the lack of clarity about the concept of guilt — the uncertainty as to what attitude a man should adopt when misfortune befalls him; there you will glimpse the dawning of the new concept of guilt.
Thus the moral code was given to the ancient Hebrew people as a revelation from without — like the revelations concerning the kingdoms of Nature. This could only come about because Zarathustra had made provision for the continuation of his work, as I explained, by passing on his etheric body to Moses and his astral body to Hermes. Moses was thereby endowed with the faculty to perceive, as Zarathustra had perceived, the forces at work in the external world; but instead of experiencing neutral forces only, Moses became aware of the moral power holding sway in the world, the power that can take the form of commandment. Hence the element of obedience, submission to the Law, was implicit in the life and culture of the Hebrew people, whereas the ideal contained in the stream represented by Buddha was to give direction to man's inner life in the teachings of the Eightfold Path. But it was necessary that this Hebrew people should be preserved until the right time arrived — the time of the advent of the Christ-principle of which we are about to speak. The Hebrew people had to be ‘screened’ from Buddha's revelation and kept at a less mature stage of culture — if we like to call it so. Hence among the ancient Hebrews there were personalities who could not themselves, as human beings, be bearers of the full powers of an Individuality whose mission it was to represent the ‘Law’. A personality such as Buddha could not have appeared within the Hebrew people. The Law could be apprehended only through enlightenment from without — through the fact that Moses bore the etheric body of Zarathustra and was able to receive something that was not born of his own soul. To give birth to the Law from their own hearts was beyond the power of the Hebrew people. But it was essential, as in all other such cases, for the work of Moses to be carried onward and so bear fruit at the right time. Hence it was inevitable that there should arise among the ancient Hebrew people Individualities such as the Prophets and Seers, one of the most important of whom was Elijah. What is there to be said about a personality such as his?
Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. But the folk-substance of the Hebrews could produce no human being able to represent the whole content of the Law of Moses — which could be received only as a revelation from above. What we described as being necessary in the ancient Indian epoch, also as the special nature of the Bodhisattva, had to be repeated again and again in the Hebrew people too: there had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature. Only part of his being was present in his personality on the physical plane; the Ego-hood of Elijah could not penetrate fully into his physical body. He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world. In the normal way the human being develops in the mother's body in such a way that through physical processes the Individuality who has been incarnated previously simply unites with the physical embryo. In the case of an ordinary man everything takes place as it were straightforwardly, without any intervention by forces outside the normal. This could not be so in the case of an Individuality such as Elijah. Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world. His development was necessarily attended by influences working upon him from outside. Hence when such Individualities are incarnated they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence. All the prophets in the Old Testament are figures of this kind. They are ‘impelled by the Spirit’; the Ego cannot always account for its actions. The Spirit lives in the personality and is sustained from outside. From time to time such personalities withdraw into solitude; the part of the Ego needed by the personality withdraws and inspiration comes from the Spirit. In certain ecstatic, unconscious states such a being is responsive to the inspirations from above. The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth and the actions performed by his hands did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.
When this Individuality was born again he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah. But in him we have to do with an Individuality who in his earlier incarnations had not habitually developed or brought fully into operation all the forces present in the normal course of life. In the normal course of life the inner power or force of the Ego becomes active while the physical body of the human being is developing in the mother's womb. The Elijah-Individuality in earlier times had not descended deeply enough to be involved in the inner processes operating here. The Ego had not, as in normal circumstances, been stirred into activity by its own forces, but from outside. This was now to happen again. But the Ego was now farther from the spiritual world and nearer to the Earth, much more closely connected with the Earth than the Beings who had formerly guided Elijah. The transition leading to the amalgamation of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream was now to be brought about.
Everything was to be rejuvenated. It was now the Buddha who had to work from outside — the Being who had linked himself with the Earth and its affairs and now, in his Nirmanakaya, was united with the Nathan Jesus. This Being who on the one side was united with the Earth but on the other withdrawn from it because he was working only in his Nirmanakaya which had soared to realms ‘beyond’ the Earth and hovered above the head of the Nathan Jesus — this Being had now to work from outside and stimulate the Ego-force of John the Baptist.
Thus it was the Nirmanakaya of Buddha which now stirred the Ego-force of John into activity, having the same effect as spiritual forces that had formerly worked upon Elijah. At certain times the being known as Elijah had been rapt in states of ecstasy; then the God spoke, filling his Ego with a force which could be communicated to the outer world. Now again a spiritual force was present — the Nirmanakaya of Buddha hovering above the head of the Nathan Jesus; this force worked upon Elisabeth when John was to be born, stimulated within her the embryo of John in the sixth month of pregnancy, and wakened the Ego. But being nearer to the Earth this force now worked as more than an inspiration; it had an actual formative effect upon the Ego of John. Under the influence of the visit of her who is there called ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it and penetrating right into the physical substance. 1
What may we now expect?
Even as the words of power once spoken by Elijah in the ninth century before our era were in truth ‘God's words’, and the actions performed by his hands ‘God's actions’, it was now to be the same in the case of John the Baptist, inasmuch as what had been present in Elijah had come to life again. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha worked as an inspiration into the Ego of John the Baptist. That which manifested itself to the shepherds and hovered above the head of the Nathan Jesus extended its power into John the Baptist, whose preaching was primarily the re-awakened preaching of Buddha. This fact is in the highest degree noteworthy and cannot fail to make a deep impression upon us when we recall the sermon at Benares wherein Buddha spoke of the suffering in life and the release from it through the Eightfold Path. He often expanded a sermon by saying in effect: ‘Hitherto you have had the teaching of the Brahmans; they ascribe their origin to Brahma himself and claim to be superior to other men because of this noble descent. These Brahmans claim that a man's worth is determined by his descent, but I say to you: Man's worth is determined by what he makes of himself, not by what is in him by virtue of his descent. Judged by the great wisdom of the world, man's worth lies in whatever he makes of himself as an individual!’ — Buddha aroused the wrath of the Brahmans because he emphasized the individual quality in men, saying: ‘Verily it is of no avail to call yourselves Brahmans; what matters is that each one of you, through his own personal qualities and efforts should make of himself a purified individual.’ Although not word for word, such was the gist of many of Buddha's sermons. And he would often expand this teaching by showing how, when a man understands the world of suffering, he can feel compassion, can become a comforter and a helper, how he shares the lot of others because he knows that he is feeling the same suffering and the same pain.
The Buddha, now in his Nirmanakaya, shed his radiance upon the Nathan Jesus-child and continued his preaching inasmuch as he let the words resound from the mouth of John the Baptist. These words were spoken under the inspiration of the Buddha and it is like a continuation of his former preaching when, for example, John says: ‘You who set so much store by your descent from those who in the service of the spiritual powers are called Children of the Serpent, and plead the Wisdom of the Serpent, who led you to this? You believe that you bring forth fruits of repentance when you merely say: We have Abraham to our father’ ... (now, however, John continues the actual preaching of Buddha) ... ‘Say not that you have Abraham to your father, but be good men, whatever your place in the world. A good man can be raised up from the stones upon which your feet tread. Verily, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham’ ... And then again he says: ‘He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none!’ Men came to him and asked: ‘Master, what shall we do?’ — exactly as the monks once came to Buddha. All these sayings seem to be like utterances of Buddha himself, or a continuation of them. (See Luke III, 7–12).
Thus the moral code was given to the ancient Hebrew people as a revelation from without — like the revelations concerning the kingdoms of Nature. This could only come about because Zarathustra had made provision for the continuation of his work, as I explained, by passing on his etheric body to Moses and his astral body to Hermes. Moses was thereby endowed with the faculty to perceive, as Zarathustra had perceived, the forces at work in the external world; but instead of experiencing neutral forces only, Moses became aware of the moral power holding sway in the world, the power that can take the form of commandment. Hence the element of obedience, submission to the Law, was implicit in the life and culture of the Hebrew people, whereas the ideal contained in the stream represented by Buddha was to give direction to man's inner life in the teachings of the Eightfold Path. But it was necessary that this Hebrew people should be preserved until the right time arrived — the time of the advent of the Christ-principle of which we are about to speak. The Hebrew people had to be ‘screened’ from Buddha's revelation and kept at a less mature stage of culture — if we like to call it so. Hence among the ancient Hebrews there were personalities who could not themselves, as human beings, be bearers of the full powers of an Individuality whose mission it was to represent the ‘Law’. A personality such as Buddha could not have appeared within the Hebrew people. The Law could be apprehended only through enlightenment from without — through the fact that Moses bore the etheric body of Zarathustra and was able to receive something that was not born of his own soul. To give birth to the Law from their own hearts was beyond the power of the Hebrew people. But it was essential, as in all other such cases, for the work of Moses to be carried onward and so bear fruit at the right time. Hence it was inevitable that there should arise among the ancient Hebrew people Individualities such as the Prophets and Seers, one of the most important of whom was Elijah. What is there to be said about a personality such as his?
Elijah was destined to be one of the ruling figures in the régime inaugurated by Moses. But the folk-substance of the Hebrews could produce no human being able to represent the whole content of the Law of Moses — which could be received only as a revelation from above. What we described as being necessary in the ancient Indian epoch, also as the special nature of the Bodhisattva, had to be repeated again and again in the Hebrew people too: there had to be Individualities who were not wholly contained in the human personality; one part of their being was in the earthly personality and the other in the spiritual world. Elijah was an Individuality of this nature. Only part of his being was present in his personality on the physical plane; the Ego-hood of Elijah could not penetrate fully into his physical body. He must therefore be called a personality ‘filled with the Spirit’. A figure such as Elijah could not possibly be brought into existence through the normal forces by which other men are placed in the world. In the normal way the human being develops in the mother's body in such a way that through physical processes the Individuality who has been incarnated previously simply unites with the physical embryo. In the case of an ordinary man everything takes place as it were straightforwardly, without any intervention by forces outside the normal. This could not be so in the case of an Individuality such as Elijah. Other forces had to intervene, concerned with the part of the Individuality that reached into the spiritual world. His development was necessarily attended by influences working upon him from outside. Hence when such Individualities are incarnated they appear as men who are ‘inspired’, ‘impelled by the Spirit’. They appear as ecstatic personalities whose utterances far surpass anything that might issue from their normal intelligence. All the prophets in the Old Testament are figures of this kind. They are ‘impelled by the Spirit’; the Ego cannot always account for its actions. The Spirit lives in the personality and is sustained from outside. From time to time such personalities withdraw into solitude; the part of the Ego needed by the personality withdraws and inspiration comes from the Spirit. In certain ecstatic, unconscious states such a being is responsive to the inspirations from above. The man who lived as ‘Elijah’ was an outstanding example of this. The words uttered by his mouth and the actions performed by his hands did not proceed only from the part of his being actually present in his personality; they were manifestations of divine-spiritual Beings in the background.
When this Individuality was born again he was to unite with the body of the child born to Zacharias and Elisabeth. We know from the Gospel itself that John the Baptist is to be regarded as the reborn Elijah. But in him we have to do with an Individuality who in his earlier incarnations had not habitually developed or brought fully into operation all the forces present in the normal course of life. In the normal course of life the inner power or force of the Ego becomes active while the physical body of the human being is developing in the mother's womb. The Elijah-Individuality in earlier times had not descended deeply enough to be involved in the inner processes operating here. The Ego had not, as in normal circumstances, been stirred into activity by its own forces, but from outside. This was now to happen again. But the Ego was now farther from the spiritual world and nearer to the Earth, much more closely connected with the Earth than the Beings who had formerly guided Elijah. The transition leading to the amalgamation of the Buddha-stream with the Zarathustra-stream was now to be brought about.
Everything was to be rejuvenated. It was now the Buddha who had to work from outside — the Being who had linked himself with the Earth and its affairs and now, in his Nirmanakaya, was united with the Nathan Jesus. This Being who on the one side was united with the Earth but on the other withdrawn from it because he was working only in his Nirmanakaya which had soared to realms ‘beyond’ the Earth and hovered above the head of the Nathan Jesus — this Being had now to work from outside and stimulate the Ego-force of John the Baptist.
Thus it was the Nirmanakaya of Buddha which now stirred the Ego-force of John into activity, having the same effect as spiritual forces that had formerly worked upon Elijah. At certain times the being known as Elijah had been rapt in states of ecstasy; then the God spoke, filling his Ego with a force which could be communicated to the outer world. Now again a spiritual force was present — the Nirmanakaya of Buddha hovering above the head of the Nathan Jesus; this force worked upon Elisabeth when John was to be born, stimulated within her the embryo of John in the sixth month of pregnancy, and wakened the Ego. But being nearer to the Earth this force now worked as more than an inspiration; it had an actual formative effect upon the Ego of John. Under the influence of the visit of her who is there called ‘Mary’, the Ego of John the Baptist awoke into activity. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha was here working upon the Ego of the former Elijah — now the Ego of John the Baptist — wakening it and penetrating right into the physical substance. 1
What may we now expect?
Even as the words of power once spoken by Elijah in the ninth century before our era were in truth ‘God's words’, and the actions performed by his hands ‘God's actions’, it was now to be the same in the case of John the Baptist, inasmuch as what had been present in Elijah had come to life again. The Nirmanakaya of Buddha worked as an inspiration into the Ego of John the Baptist. That which manifested itself to the shepherds and hovered above the head of the Nathan Jesus extended its power into John the Baptist, whose preaching was primarily the re-awakened preaching of Buddha. This fact is in the highest degree noteworthy and cannot fail to make a deep impression upon us when we recall the sermon at Benares wherein Buddha spoke of the suffering in life and the release from it through the Eightfold Path. He often expanded a sermon by saying in effect: ‘Hitherto you have had the teaching of the Brahmans; they ascribe their origin to Brahma himself and claim to be superior to other men because of this noble descent. These Brahmans claim that a man's worth is determined by his descent, but I say to you: Man's worth is determined by what he makes of himself, not by what is in him by virtue of his descent. Judged by the great wisdom of the world, man's worth lies in whatever he makes of himself as an individual!’ — Buddha aroused the wrath of the Brahmans because he emphasized the individual quality in men, saying: ‘Verily it is of no avail to call yourselves Brahmans; what matters is that each one of you, through his own personal qualities and efforts should make of himself a purified individual.’ Although not word for word, such was the gist of many of Buddha's sermons. And he would often expand this teaching by showing how, when a man understands the world of suffering, he can feel compassion, can become a comforter and a helper, how he shares the lot of others because he knows that he is feeling the same suffering and the same pain.
The Buddha, now in his Nirmanakaya, shed his radiance upon the Nathan Jesus-child and continued his preaching inasmuch as he let the words resound from the mouth of John the Baptist. These words were spoken under the inspiration of the Buddha and it is like a continuation of his former preaching when, for example, John says: ‘You who set so much store by your descent from those who in the service of the spiritual powers are called Children of the Serpent, and plead the Wisdom of the Serpent, who led you to this? You believe that you bring forth fruits of repentance when you merely say: We have Abraham to our father’ ... (now, however, John continues the actual preaching of Buddha) ... ‘Say not that you have Abraham to your father, but be good men, whatever your place in the world. A good man can be raised up from the stones upon which your feet tread. Verily, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham’ ... And then again he says: ‘He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none!’ Men came to him and asked: ‘Master, what shall we do?’ — exactly as the monks once came to Buddha. All these sayings seem to be like utterances of Buddha himself, or a continuation of them. (See Luke III, 7–12).
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7th Holy Night / Threefold ReviewDecember 30: at sunset begins the 7th Holy Night and ends at dawn on the next day (December 31). Our threefold review turns towards events during July of the past year.
7th Holy Night / Threefold Review / Body / Physical World7th Holy Night / Threefold Review / Soul7th Holy Night / Threefold Review / Spirit7th Holy Night / Threefold Review / ArtworkWe turn towards an artistic activity, drawing, painting, writing poetry, or another artistic medium of choice. We attempt to complete artwork inspired by the previous contemplation and review.
7th Holy Night / Threefold Review / The Realm of the NightDecember 31: In the morning we note and write down what came to us from the realm of sleep, our dreams or messages received upon waking up, and the like.
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