Gospels

The gospels describe different angles of perspectives on the three years of Christ-Jesus on Earth, see Schemas FMC00.102 and FMC00.452.

The five gospels were written from clairvoyant perception, see Clairvoyant research of akashic records with the different authors working from a different initiation background and stage of clairvoyance. See also Schemas FMC00.509 and FMC00.540.

The first four canonical gospels part in the New Testament in the Bible were written (more than a century after Christ) by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are referred to as the synoptic because they include many of the same stories and often in similar sequence and similar wording, this in contrast to John whose content is largely distinct.
The fifth gospel was delivered from clairvoyant perception by Rudolf Steiner in 1913-1914 (GA148) and complements the first four (see Schema FMC00.017 below).

Aspects

Goal

The objective of the gospels was not to have a historical record of events or biography of Jesus of Nazareth, but to lead and transform the human soul to a genuine true love for the Christ and divinity. They were a rebirth of old initiation instructions, new and public versions of the process and instructions given in the old Initiations. So that in the future, Man through the simple evolution of the soul, will be able to experience that which was once experienced in the Mysteries. (1911-10-04-GA131)
The way to Christ via the gospels (1912-04-16-GA143)

Four perspectives

four perspectives, and tetramorph
- the four different perspectives based on different initiation background of the authors of the gospels, hence the link with the four animal group souls that represented iniation practices in the ancient Mysteries: Man, bull, lion, eagle
  - note there is not a single association, interpretations vary:
    - Matthew Lion, Mark Bull, Luke Man, John Eagle
    - Matthew Man, Mark Lion, Luke Bull, John Eagle
    - Matthew Lion, Mark Man, Luke Bull, John Eagle (Augustine)
- in Christian (medieval) art and iconography, the tetramorph represents the union of the symbols of the four evangelists into a group of four figures (and sometimes even a single morphed figure) with Christ in the center. It represents the four perspectives given, as well as that Christ came for all human beings and four corners of the Earth. (see also wikipedia page for tetramorph)
- the four gospels map to four cultural ages: Matthew to fourth, Mark to current fifth, Luke sixth, John's gospel to the seventh (1905-08-14-GA091, 1911-03-07-GA124)
  - see also Schema FMC00.021A and more on Holy Supper symbolism - apostles
the three aspects of the Christ Impulse and the four gospels: (1912-12-24-GA143)
- (1) the spiritual kingdom in Matthew (and the three magi)
- (2) the cosmic aspect in Mark and John
- (3) the child aspect in Luke (personification of love between divine wisdom and power)
the gospels in their current form today need to be complemented with insights from spiritual science in order to offer a path to the Christ, on their own, especially if only one of the four is taken as a base, such singular/literal focus can lead to an ahrimanic delusion (1919-10-27-GA193)
see also 1921-10-01A-GA343 below

Other

timing of the gospels (1917-03-27-GA175)
see also:
- Gospel of John as an initiation document
other books of the Bible are out of scope on this topic page, but for the books of Revelation and Genesis, see their respective topic pages and also Evolution Module 3 - Integrating traditions

Inspirational quotes

1921-10-01A-GA343

.. however often you approach them — [you will] always encounter something new. ... Learning about the Gospels is linked to .. to the fact that the further you occupy yourself with them, the more your admiration grows for the depth of the content, for just that, I could call it the immeasurable, into which you can become immersed, which calls for the actual experience, that there is no end to this immersion into the depths, that this admiration increases greatly with every deepening of the Gospel involvement.
... The truth needs to be experienced, and the Gospels themselves are such written works in which truth can be experienced; however, you need to have patience in order to experience this truth in the Gospels.
.. These are the things you need to place in the soul with Gospel reading, and shape in your heart, otherwise you would actually never be able to cope with the Gospels in a real way.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.509 illustrates the complementary of the four gospel perspectives, by showing the clairvoyant faculties of the four evangelists (left) and some key differences between the gospels (right).

Schema FMC00.102 illustrates the complementarity of the four gospels and the perspectives they represent.

Lecture coverage and references

Coverage overview

Rudolf Steiner held more than 100 lectures on the gospels, predominantly the Gospel of St.John. This started with the cycle 'Christianity as a mystical fact' (1902-GA008), and ended ten years later with the cycle on the 'Gospel of St. Mark' (1912-GA139). The Fifth Gospel followed with 1913-GA148.

He did not cover the gospels or bible any more in the next ten years, and only came back one last time with the Book of Revelation and the work of the priest in 1924-GA347. Also the Book of Revelation was covered with about 60 lectures and yearly cycles, similarly to the Gospel of St. John.

Source extracts

1902-GA008

Ch 6: The Gospels

1904-08-19-GA091

aids to the New Testament, oa meaning of snake, prophet; making childs from stones, etc

1905-08-14-GA091

In 1905-08-14-GA091 the four evangelists are linked to the transitions between cultural ages, see also FMC00.021A. (between cultural ages, read: different spirits of the age, or Archai .. whereby one can also consider the cyclic 'round robbin' within a hierarchy, see the 1910-06-07-GA121 reference at the topic of repetition).

1909-07-01-GA112

Two of the Evangelists, Mark and John, begin with the baptism by John. They relate the last three years of the life of Christ Jesus, confining themselves to what happened after the Christ-spirit had taken possession of the threefold covering of Jesus of Nazareth — of his physical, etheric, and astral bodies. Then we have the two Gospels according to Matthew and Luke. They give in addition the earlier history, which, in the sense of the Akashic record, is the history of Jesus of Nazareth before the sacrifice of himself to the Christ. The seekers for contradiction find, to begin with, that
Matthew gives a line of ancestors back to Abraham, while

Luke gives a genealogy reaching back to Adam, and from Adam to the father of Adam, God Himself.

Another contradiction could then be found in the fact that,

according to Matthew, three wise men or Magi, led by a star, came to greet the new born Jesus, while

Luke tells of the shepherds' vision, of their adoration of the Child,
and of the presentation in the Temple, against which Matthew tells of Herod's persecution, the flight into Egypt, and the return. These and many other details might strike one as contradictions. We can deal with these if we go further into the facts supplied to us by the Akashic record independently of the Gospels.

1909-07-06-GA112

gives a positioning of the four gospels

This is not merely the cosmology of spiritual science. It is what we need in order to fathom the full depth of St. John's Gospel. Its writer, having described therein the sublimest truths, could say:
‘In this Gospel are contained truths from which mankind will obtain nourishment for all time to come. Inasmuch as man gradually learns to understand and practise these truths, he will acquire new wisdom and ascend by a new way into the spiritual worlds.’
But this will take place only in the course of time and by degrees. Therefore the united leaders of Christian evolution were obliged to provide for the appearance of ancillary books, side by side with the Gospel of St. John; books which were not intended (like the Gospel of St. John) for the foremost in good will and understanding. In fact, ancillary books had to be provided for the immediate future.
In the first place a book was given to the world, from which the generations of the first centuries of Christian evolution could learn, in a manner suited to their intellect, the highest truth they required for the understanding of the Christ-event. To be sure, in proportion to the whole of mankind, the number of those who understood what this book could give them, was but small. This first ancillary book was not intended for the highest select, but indeed for the select; this was the Gospel of St. Mark. This Gospel was composed in a manner especially adapted for a certain understanding peculiar to those times.
Then followed a time in which the Gospel of St. Mark began to be less understood; human understanding tended to grasp the whole force of Christ in its inner value for the human soul, and to regard the outer physical world with a certain contempt. A time came in which man was eminently disposed to utter such words as: ‘Worthless are all temporal goods; true riches are nowhere found save in man's evolved inner self.’ This was the time in which John Tauler wrote his book Of the Poor Life of Christ (Von armen Leben Christi). It was a time in which the Gospel of St. Luke was best understood. Luke, a disciple of St. Paul, was one of those who lent Paul's own Gospel a form suited to that epoch, giving prominence to the ‘poor life’ of Jesus of Nazareth, who was born in a stable and surrounded by poor shepherds. We recognize John Tauler's Poor Life of Christ in the narration of the Gospel of St. Luke, the second of the books given for the furtherance of the evolution of mankind. In our time there will be some who can best learn from the Gospel of St. Matthew what is suited to their understanding and adapted to the needs of the present day. Even though Matthew's name be not singled out, people will select to an increasing extent what is most in conformity with St. Matthew's Gospel.
There will be a growing tendency to show that nothing can be understood of the events which were enacted in the higher worlds at the Baptism of John, as we have narrated them. Many will experience this in the future. We are approaching a time in which he who, in the 30th year of his life, received into himself the Christ, will be to an increasing extent regarded, even by the professors of religion, as the ‘simple man of Nazareth’. ...
But the Gospel of St. Matthew was originally written in a community in which the chief place was given, not to Christ, but to that individuality who appeared to the world in the person of the Initiate Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of St. Matthew was founded on a traditional document of initiation known to the Ebionite Gnostics, and can be traced back to such a document as to its model. There, special importance is attached to the initiate Jesus of Nazareth, and all the rest becomes much clearer by the fact that it is contained in the Ebionite Gospel

1909-09-15-GA114

quote A

If the viewpoint reached through studying the Gospel of St. John may truly be called the most profound, can it be widened or enriched in any way by study of the other three Gospels of St. Luke, St. Matthew and St. Mark?
Again, those who tend to be mentally lazy might ask: If the deepest depths of Christianity are to be found in the Gospel of St. John, is it still necessary to study Christianity as presented in the other Gospels, especially in the apparently less profound Gospel of St. Luke?
Anyone who might put this question believing such an attitude to be worthy of consideration would be labouring under a complete misapprehension. The scope of Christianity itself is infinite and light can be shed upon it from the most diverse standpoints. Furthermore, as the present course of lectures will show, although the Gospel of St. John is a document of untold profundity, there are facts which can be learnt from the Gospel of St. Luke and not from that of St. John. The ideas which in the lectures on the Gospel of St. John we came to recognize as among the most profound in Christianity, do not by any means comprise all its depths. It is possible to penetrate these depths from another starting-point altogether, basing our studies on the Gospel of St. Luke viewed in the light of anthroposophy.
Let us once again recall facts in support of the statement that there is something to be gained from the Gospel of St. Luke even if the depths of the Gospel of St. John have been exhaustively studied. A fact revealed to the student of anthroposophy by every line of the Gospel of St. John is that records such as the gospels were composed by individuals who, as initiates and clairvoyants, possessed deeper insight than other men into the nature of existence. In everyday parlance the terms ‘initiate’ and ‘clairvoyant’ may be synonymous.
But if our studies of anthroposophy are to lead us into the deeper strata of spiritual life, we must distinguish between one who is an ‘initiate’ and one who is a ‘clairvoyant’, for they represent two distinct categories of human beings who have found their way into the spheres of super-sensible existence. There is a difference between an initiate and a clairvoyant, although an initiate may at the same time be a clairvoyant, and a clairvoyant an initiate of a certain grade.
... [description of imagination, intuition, inspiration - see Stages of clairvoyance]
...
If with this in mind we turn our attention to the four Gospels, we may say that the Gospel of St. John is written from the vantage-point of one who in the fullest sense was an Initiate, cognisant at the stage of Intuition of the mysteries of the super-sensible world, and who therefore describes the Christ Event as revealed by the vision of Intuition. But if close attention is paid to the distinctive characteristics of St. John's Gospel it will have to be admitted that the features standing out most clearly are presented from the standpoint of Inspiration and Intuition, while everything originating from the pictures of Imagination is shadowy and lacks definition. Thus if we disregard what was still revealed to him through Imagination, we may call the writer of St. John's Gospel the messenger of everything relating to the Christ Event that is vouchsafed to one endowed with the power of apprehending the inner word at the stage of Intuition. Hence he describes the mysteries of Christ's Kingdom as receiving their character through the inner Word, or Logos. Knowledge through Inspiration and Intuition is the source of the Gospel of St. John.
It is different in the case of the other three Gospels, and not one of their writers expressed his message as clearly as did the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke. In a short but remarkable preface it is said, in effect, that many others had previously attempted to collect and set forth the stories in circulation concerning the events in Palestine; but that for the sake of accuracy and order the writer of this Gospel is now undertaking to present the things which ... and now come significant words ... could be understood by those who from the beginning were ‘eye-witnesses and servants (ministers) of the Word’ — that is the usual rendering. The aim of the writer of this Gospel is therefore to communicate what eye-witnesses — it would be better to say ‘seers’ (Selbstseher) — and servants of the Word had to say. In the sense of St. Luke's Gospel, ‘seers’ are men who through Imaginative Cognition can penetrate into the world of pictures and there behold the Christ Event; people specially trained to perceive these Imaginations are seers with accurate and clear vision at the same time as being ‘servants of the Word’ — a significant phrase — and the writer of St. Luke's Gospel uses their communications as a foundation. He does not say ‘possessors’ of the Word, because such persons would have reached the stage of Inspiration in the fullest sense; he says ‘servants’ of the Word — people who could count less upon Inspirations than upon Imaginations in their own knowledge but for whom communications from the world of Inspiration were nevertheless available. The results of Inspirational Cognition were communicated to them and they could proclaim what their inspired teachers had made known to them. They were ‘servants’, not ‘possessors’ of the Word.
Thus the Gospel of St. Luke is founded upon the communications of seers, themselves knowers of the world of Imagination; they are those who, having learnt to express their visions of that world through means made possible by their inspired teachers, had themselves become ‘servants of the Word’.
Here again is an example of the exactitude of the Gospel records and of the need to understand the words in the strictly literal sense. In texts based upon spiritual knowledge, everything is exact to a degree often undreamed of by modern man.
...
The same can be said of the other Gospels, including that of St. Luke. It is not the pictures delineated by the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke that are for us the source of knowledge of the higher worlds; the source for us lies in the results of ascent into the super-sensible world. When we speak of the Christ Event, a source for us is also that great tableau of pictures and Imaginations appearing when we direct our gaze to the beginning of our era. We compare what thus reveals itself with the pictures and Imaginations described in the Gospel of St. Luke; and this course of lectures will show how the Imaginative pictures accessible to man to-day compare with the descriptions given in that Gospel.
The truth is that there is only one source for spiritual investigation when directed to the events of the past. This source does not lie in external records; no stones dug out of the earth, no documents preserved in archives, no treatises written by historians either with or without insight — none of these things is the source of spiritual science. What we are able to read in the imperishable Akashic Chronicle — that is the source of spiritual science. The possibility exists of knowing what has happened in the past without reference to external records. Modern man has thus two ways of acquiring information about the past. He can take the documents and the historical records when he wants to learn something about outer events, or the religious scripts when he wants to learn something about the conditions of spiritual life. Or else he can ask: What have those men to say before whose spiritual vision lies that imperishable Chronicle known as the ‘Akashic Chronicle’ — that mighty tableau in which there is registered whatever has at any time come to pass in the evolution of the world, of the earth and of humanity?
Whoever raises his consciousness into the spiritual world learns gradually to read this chronicle. It is no ordinary script. Think of the course of events, just as they happened, presented to your spiritual vision; think, let us say, of the Emperor Augustus and all his deeds standing before you in a cloud-like picture. The picture stands there before the spiritual-scientific investigator and he can at any time evoke the experience anew. He requires no external evidence. He need only direct his gaze to a definite point in cosmic or human happenings and the events will present themselves to him in a spiritual picture. In this way the spiritual gaze can survey the ages of the past, and what is there perceived is recorded as the findings of spiritual investigation.
What happened at the beginning of our era can be perceived by spiritual vision and compared, for example, with what is related in the Gospel of St. Luke. Then the spiritual investigator recognizes that at that time too there were seers able to behold the past; and moreover the accounts they give of happenings in their own times can be compared with what is revealed to-day by spiritual investigation of the Akashic Chronicle.

see more on Clairvoyant research of akashic records quote B

I have often pointed out why purely materialistic research cannot recognize the supreme value and profundity of the Gospel of St. John: it is because those who carry out this research cannot understand that a higher Initiate sees differently, more deeply, than the others. Those who have doubts about the Gospel of St. John attempt to establish a kind of conformity between the three synoptic Gospels. But conformity will be difficult to establish and sustain if it is based only upon the external, material happenings. What will be of particular importance in tomorrow's lecture, namely the life of Jesus of Nazareth before the Baptism by John, is described by two Evangelists, by the writers of the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Luke, and external, materialistic observation will find differences there that are in no way less than those which must be assumed to exist between the Gospel of St. John and the other three Gospels.
Let us take the facts: The writer of the Gospel of St. Matthew relates how the birth of the Creator of Christianity was announced beforehand, how the birth took place, how Magi, having seen the ‘star’, came from the East, being led by the star to the place where the Redeemer was born; he describes how Herod's attention was aroused and how, in order to escape the massacre of the babes in Bethlehem, the parents of the Redeemer fled with the child to Egypt; when Herod was dead it was made known to Joseph, the father of Jesus, that they might return, but for fear of Herod's successor they went to Nazareth instead of returning to Bethlehem.
Today I will leave aside the Baptist's proclamation, but I want to draw attention to the fact that if we compare the Gospels of St. Luke and St. Matthew we find the annunciation of Jesus of Nazareth described quite differently; the one Gospel relates that it was made to Mary, the other that it was made to Joseph. From the Gospel of St. Luke we learn that the parents of Jesus of Nazareth lived at that place and went to Bethlehem on the occasion of the enrolling. While they were there, Jesus was born. Then came the circumcision, after eight days — nothing is said about a flight into Egypt — and a short time afterwards the child was presented in the temple; the customary offering having been made, the parents returned with the child to Nazareth. A remarkable incident is then described — how on the occasion of a visit with his parents to Jerusalem the twelve-year-old Jesus remained behind in the temple, how his parents sought and found him there among those who expounded the scriptures, how among the learned doctors of the Law he gave evidence of profound knowledge of the scriptures. Then it is related how the parents took the child home with them again, how he grew up ... and we hear nothing particular about him from that time until the Baptism by John.
Here we have two accounts of Jesus of Nazareth before the Christ descended into him. Whoever wishes to reconcile the accounts must consider how, according to the ordinary materialistic view, he can reconcile the story in the Gospel of St. Matthew that directly after the birth of Jesus his parents, Joseph and Mary, fled with the child into Egypt and subsequently returned, with the other story of the presentation in the temple narrated by St. Luke.
In these lectures we shall find that what seems a complete contradiction to the ordinary mind will be revealed as truth in the light of spiritual investigation. Both accounts are true! — although presented as accounts of events in the physical world they are in apparent contradiction. Precisely the three synoptic Gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark and St. Luke ought to compel people to adopt a spiritual conception of events in the history of humanity. For it is surely obvious that nothing is attained by ignoring apparent contradictions in such records or by speaking of ‘fiction’ when realities prove too great an obstacle.
We shall have opportunity here to speak of things of which there was no occasion to speak in detail when we were studying the Gospel of St. John namely, the events that took place before the Baptism by John and the descent of the Christ into the three bodies of Jesus of Nazareth. Many riddles of vital significance concerning the essence of Christianity will find their solution when — as the outcome of research into the Akashic Chronicle — we hear of the being and nature of Jesus of Nazareth before the Christ took possession of his three bodies.
Tomorrow we shall begin by considering the nature and the life of Jesus of Nazareth as revealed in the Akashic Chronicle, and then ask ourselves: How does the knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth compare with what is described in the Gospel of St. Luke as imparted by those who at that time were ‘seers’ or ‘servants’ of the Word, of the Logos?

1909-11-02-GA117

covers the Gospel of Matthew

[On 'I am the light of the world']
In these two Gospels, therefore, this Being has been depicted as the One Who in His compassion can make the supreme sacrifice, and Who shines over all human existence through the power of His light. Light and Love made manifest in the Being of Christ-Jesus — these are the aspects that have been described. And those who have grasped the full compass of our studies of the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke will be able to gather some idea of what in Christ-Jesus was “Light” and what in Him was “Love and Compassion.”
...
What have we actually understood from our studies of the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke?
We have understood nothing beyond those attributes of Christ-Jesus which we may call the universal Light of Wisdom and the universal Warmth of Love, both of which flowed in Him as in no other Being, and which can never be wholly within the reach of our human comprehension. Whereas in connection with the Gospel of St. John we may speak of great, transcendental Ideas sweeping like eagles in heights far above the heads of men, in the Gospel of St. Luke we find that which speaks at every moment to each individual human heart. The significance of St. Luke's Gospel is that it fills us with a warmth that is the outward expression of love, with understanding for the love that is ready to make the supreme sacrifice, which has no other desire than to surrender its very self.
...
[TFW and threefold soul]
If the Gospel of St. Mark had been studied in addition to the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke, a tentative understanding of three attributes of Christ Jesus would be within our reach. We should then have the right to say: “With all reverence we have come nearer to Thee, and we have dimly divined something of Thy Thinking, Thy Feeling, Thy Willing These three attributes of Thy Being hover above us as supreme prototypes of earthly existence!” We begin our study of an ordinary human being in the same way when we speak of Sentient Soul, Mind-Soul and Spiritual Soul, and study the characteristics and functions of each.

Of the ‘spiritual or consciousness soul’ of Christ we can say that we acquire an insight into the understanding of it from St. John's Gospel;

the ‘intellectual soul’ of Christ becomes comprehensible to us through St. Luke's Gospel;

and the ‘sentient soul’ of Christ, with all its forces of will, through St. Mark's Gospel.

When we come to study this last Gospel, light will be shed on the forces of Nature, both manifest and hidden, concentrated in the single Individuality of Christ, and on the essential character of all the forces operating in the world.

The Gospel of St. John has deepened our understanding of the Thoughts of this Being,

the Gospel of St. Luke our understanding of His Feelings,

and because man is not wont to penetrate so deeply into these two realms of the life of soul, studies of the Gospels of St. John and St. Luke are relatively simple in comparison with the picture, presented in the Gospel of St. Mark, of the system and organisation of the hidden forces, both natural and spiritual, operating in the world. All this stands revealed in the Akasha Chronicle and it will be mirrored before us when we pass on to study the power-filled Gospel of St. Mark. Then we shall begin to discern all that is concentrated in the Being of Christ, and which otherwise is distributed among the whole variety of individual beings in the world. We shall then be able to understand, and perceive in a higher, clearer way, all that we have learnt to know as the fundamental elemental laws and principles behind all kinds of existence. As we grasp the meaning of the Gospel of St. Mark, which contains all the secrets of the Universal Will, then, in all reverence, we draw nearer to Christ-Jesus, the focal point of the Universe, inasmuch as more and more we apprehend His Thinking, His Feeling and His Willing.

...

It is in the Gospel of St. Matthew that the picture is drawn for us of Christ-Jesus as man, of His life as a man during the thirty-three years of His sojourn on earth. The contents of St. Matthew's Gospel present us with a harmonised human portrait. In St. John's Gospel we saw a Divine and Cosmic Man, in St. Luke's Gospel a Being Who is the embodiment of self-giving Love, and in St. Mark's Gospel the cosmic Will operating in a single Individuality. In St. Matthew's Gospel we have the portrait of the Man of Palestine who during the thirty-three years of His life united in His own Being everything we have gathered from our study of the other three Gospels. Yet this picture of Christ-Jesus as a human being, as an earthly man, can be understood only against the background provided by our previous studies. As we saw was the case with the individual human being, so too, in this case, the attributes presented in the other three accounts are here less vividly apparent. But a picture of the human personality of Christ-Jesus can be afforded only by study of the Gospel of St. Matthew.

1909-11-14-GA117

in DE

In dem Christus Jesus haben wir tatsächlich ein Zusammenströmen aller früheren geistigen Strömungen der Menschheit und zu gleicher Zeit eine Neugeburt derselben. In dem Christus Jesus fließen zusammen alle geistigen Strömungen und werden neu geboren, in einem erhöhten Maße neu geboren. Nun könnten wir viele solche Strömungen der vorchristlichen Zeit erwähnen, die uns bei denjenigen Betrachtungen, die anknüpfen an die vier Evangelien, aus der Geisteswissenschaft entgegentreten, Strömungen, die wir zusammenfließen sehen im Christus-Ereignis; aber wir wollen zunächst nur auf drei Strömungen aufmerksam machen.
Da haben wir zunächst eine gewaltige Strömung, die seit uralten Zeiten in Asien tätig war. Das ist diejenige, die wir als den Zarathustrismus bezeichnen können.

Eine zweite geistige Strömung ist diejenige, die in Indien geblüht hat und einen gewissen Hochpunkt erreicht hat in dem Erscheinen des Gautama Buddha, sechshundert Jahre vor unserer Zeitrechnung.

Eine dritte geistige Strömung ist diejenige, die sich zum Ausdruck brachte im althebräischen Volk.
So daß wir in Christus Jesus zusammenfließen haben die althebräische Geistesströmung, dann das, was in dem Gautama Buddha sich auslebte, und dasjenige, was an den Namen Zarathustra sich knüpfte. Wir könnten noch viele solche geistige Strömungen erwähnen, aber die Sache würde dadurch zu unübersichtlich werden.

internet translation

In the Christ Jesus we actually have all former spiritual currents of mankind and at the same time a new birth of them.
In the Christ Jesus all spiritual currents flow together and are reborn, reborn in a heightened degree. Now we could mention many such currents of the pre-Christian times, which we could mention in reflections on the four gospels from the perspective spiritual science, currents that we see flowing together in the Christ event; but first we want to draw attention to only three currents.

First of all, there is a powerful current that has been active in Asia since since time immemorial. This is the one that we can call Zarathustrism.

A second spiritual current is the one that has flourished in India and has reached a certain high point in the appearance of the Gautama Buddha, six hundred years before our era.

A third spiritual current is the one that expressed itself in the ancient Hebrew people.
So that in Christ Jesus we have the ancient Hebrew spiritual current flowing together, then that which was expressed in the Gautama Buddha, and that which was connected with the name Zarathustra. We could still mention many more such spiritual currents, but this would make the matter too confusing.

1909-11-19-GA117

The Gospel of St. Matthew and the Christ Problem

1910-01-03-GA117A

1910-01-08-GA117A

1910-02-02-GA116

The Gospel of St. Matthew contains many other secrets, as indeed do all the Gospels. Although in the course of this Winter we shall open up a few aspects and perspective glimpses into the Gospels, these can at the most only stimulate the understanding. For in order to understand the Gospels completely a never-ending spiritual work is necessary.

1911-03-07-GA124

Our fifth post-Atlantean age is that specially inspired by the Gospel according to Mark.
The task of the sixth post-Atlantean age on the other hand, will be gradually to fill the whole of humanity with the spirit of Christ. Thus while in the fifth period of civilisation the Being of Christ will be an object of study, of deep inward penetration, in the sixth men will receive His nature into their whole being. Added to this, what we have learnt to recognise as the inner nature of the Gospel of Luke is of great value, for it is the one which reveals fully the origin of Jesus of Nazareth, as does also the Gospel of Matthew, which leads us back to Zarathustra, just as the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke leads us back to Buddha and Buddhism. For in our studies of the Gospel of Luke we realise that Jesus of Nazareth is presented to us throughout the course of his long evolution in such a way that we are led back to the divine spiritual origin of mankind. Through this Man will be able to realise more and more his own divine nature, and because of this must fill himself with the Christ-Impulses. This stands before us as a wondrous ideal, but it will only become concrete when, through the Gospel of Luke, we rise to a true understanding of the physical man of the sense world as a divine Being with a spiritual origin.
And for the seventh post-Atlantean cultural age, and on until the next great catastrophe, the Gospel of John will be the book of inspiration, as for the man of today it is a guide for his spiritual life. In that period many things will be of service to man which he has learnt in the course of the sixth epoch. But much of what is believed to-day will have to be unlearnt — fundamentally unlearnt. This will not be difficult, for scientific facts indicate that we will have to overcome many things.

1911-10-04-GA131

In my Christianity as Mystical Fact the purpose is to show that in the Gospels nothing is to be met with but a rebirth of old Initiation instructions. What took place externally had already taken place similarly in the course of the Mysteries, and therefore the Divine Being Who was in Jesus of Nazareth after the descent of the Mithra Being had to experience the “Temptation.” As the Tempter came on a small scale to the pupil of the Mysteries so did he also confront the God become man. All that was true in the Mysteries is to be found repeated in the Gospel records which were new versions of the old inscriptions and instructions given in the Initiations. The writers of the Gospels saw that once that which hitherto had lain only in the Mysteries had been enacted on the plane of Cosmic History, it was permissible to describe it in the same words as those in which their directions for Initiation were recorded. It is for this very reason that the Gospels were not intended to be biographies of Him Who was the vehicle for the Christ. This is just the mistake of all modern criticisms of the Gospels.
At the time they were written the sole object was to lead the human soul to a real love for the Great Soul, the Source of the world's existence. Strangely enough a clear consciousness of this prevailed almost to the end of the eighteenth century. It is pointed out in isolated writings of remarkable interest that through the Gospels the soul can be so transformed as to find the Christ.
Old Meister Eckhardt writes, “Some people want to look at God with their eyes as they look at a cow, and want to love God as they love a cow. They love God as an outward possession and an inward comfort, but these people do not love Him aright ... Simple folk imagine they ought to see God as if He stood there and they here; it is not so; God and I are One in recognition.” In another passage he writes, “A Master says, ‘God has become man, and thereby the whole human race is raised in dignity. We may rejoice that Christ our Brother has through His own power passed beyond the choir of angels, and sits at the right hand of the Father.’ This Master has spoken rightly, but verily I do not pay much attention to it. What help would it be to me if I had a brother who was a rich man, and I was at the same time a poor one? How would it help me if I had a brother who was a wise man, and I myself a fool? ... The heavenly Father begat His only Son in Himself and in me. Why in Himself and in me? I am one with Him, and it is not possible for Him to exclude me. In the same work the Holy Ghost received His Being, and is from me as from God. Why? I am in God, and if the Holy Ghost does not receive His Being from me neither does he receive it from God. I am in no way excluded.”
That is the point: that man through mystic development, without external mysteries but through the simple evolution of the soul, will in later times be able to experience that which was once experienced in the Mysteries. This, however, will only be possible because the Christ Event took place. Even if there were no Gospels, no records and no traditions, he who experiences the Christ in himself along with the being filled with Christ has the certainty, as St. Paul had it, that at the beginning of our era Christ was incarnated in a physical body.

An historical biography of Jesus of Nazareth can never be gathered out of the Gospels, but through the right unfolding of his soul powers man can and must raise himself up to the Christ, and through the Christ to Jesus. Thus only can be understood what was the aim of the Gospels and what was lacking in the whole of the nineteenth century researches on the subject of Jesus. The picture of the Christ was allowed to recede into the background in order to present a tangible Jesus quite externally from the historical records. The Gospels were misunderstood, and consequently the methods of investigation crumbled to pieces.

1912-09-24-GA139

And now, at the conclusion of our studies on the Mark Gospel I may in a certain respect say that the program laid down at the beginning of the anthroposophical movement in Central Europe insofar as it related to Christianity has in all essentials been completed in every detail.
When we started, our main task was to show how in the course of time religions have developed, culminating in the problem of Christ. We have considered the individual Gospels and various cosmic revelations; we have tried to penetrate ever more deeply into the depths of occult life in order to carry out what we indicated we should do at the beginning. We have tried to work consistently, but in essence all we have done is complete in detail what we said we would do when we started. Was this not the most natural development with respect to the Christ problem within the theosophical movement of Central Europe? In view of all this that has happened, other people who became converts to an impossible conception of Christ within the framework of Christianity can scarcely demand that we who have done this consistent work for years should be converts to their conception of Christ devised three years ago! It has often been emphasized of recent years that the Theosophical Society ought to be hospitable to all opinions. Of course it should be. But the matter appears in a quite different light if it is to be hospitable to the successive different opinions of the same personality, if that personality now maintains something different from what it did four years ago, and now demands that the Theosophical Society should provide a home for this latest opinion. Such a thing may be possible, but there is no need for us to go along with it. Nor should one be considered a heretic if one doesn't take part in such things. In Central Europe people go further still, going so far as to call white black and black white!
This is indeed a solemn moment when we are bringing to an end the latest and final phase of the work we have been carrying on for the last ten years according to plan. So we are determined to stand firm in this work and neither become discouraged nor yet lacking in understanding for others. But we must see very clearly what we have to do, and we must stand firm on our own ground and not allow ourselves to be discouraged by anything, even if white is called black and black white. Even if our anthroposophical Central European movement — in which everyone strives to do his best according to his ability, and everyone is called upon to give his best without submitting to any authority — is said to be full of fanatics and dogmatizers, we should still not be discouraged, not even if those who have their own dogma that is scarcely three years old try to organize an opposition to the dreadful dogma of Central Europe. It is painful to witness the kind of mischievous tricks that are played today in the name of Christ. We are justified in using words like these, and regard them as nothing more than a technical term, used objectively. We are doing nothing more than stating the actual fact, without emotion and without criticism. If we are obliged to put it this way it is the fault of the objective fact itself.
But these facts, when they are set against what can flow to us from a real understanding of the Gospel of St. Mark, can also lead to no other course than to continue to work in the way we have recognized as the right one. This has proved itself in our general program based on positive facts, and continues to prove itself again every day as long as we apply it to individual problems and individual facts.
And as we make our way step by step through the details of the things we have to investigate, what was said at the beginning is invariably confirmed. So even when we are studying the loftiest things we can harbor no other feeling than a true and genuine feeling for truth. Such things as the contemplation of the Mystery of Golgotha have within them already the necessary healing power that dispels error if we approach them in the spirit. Then we are led to recognize how in essence it is only an insufficient will to pursue the truth that prevents us from truly pursuing the path that opens out from the earthly into the cosmic, when the cosmic Christ within Jesus of Nazareth is investigated. But He appears to us so clearly if we understand a work like the Mark Gospel.
For this reason such works, after they have been opened up to the understanding of men by means of spiritual scientific studies, will gradually also reach out to the rest of mankind, and will be ever more clearly understood. And attention will be focused ever more on the words of the Gospels rediscovered without the aid of sense perception through clairvoyant vision of the Mystery of Golgotha.
Those who wrote the Gospels from clairvoyant observation described the physical events afterward. This must be understood, as also the necessity for it.

Those people who lived at the same time as the events in Palestine were incapable of understanding what happened at that time because it was only through the impulse given by this event that it could be understood!

Before the event had taken place no one was alive who could have understood it. It had first to take effect, so it could be understood only after the event. The key to the understanding of this Mystery of Golgotha is the Mystery of Golgotha itself! Christ had first to do all that He had to do up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, and only through the effects of what He did could the understanding of Himself come forth. Then through what He was, the Word could be enkindled which is at the same time the expression of His true being.
And so through what Christ was, the primal Word is enkindled which is communicated to us and can be recognized again in clairvoyant vision, this Word which also proclaims the true being of the Mystery of Golgotha. We may also think of this Word when we speak of Christ's own words, not only those that He spoke Himself but those which He also kindled in the souls of those able to understand Him, so that they could both understand and describe His being from within their human souls.

1917-03-27-GA175

In my book Christianity As Mystical Fact, which appeared some years ago, I ventured to indicate a certain way in which one could approach the Mystery of Christ. This book (which in its new edition was one of the last books to be confiscated by the old régime in Russia) was a first attempt to interpret Christianity from a spiritual standpoint, a standpoint which in the course of centuries has been more or less lost to Christianity during its development in the West. Now I should like to emphasize one thing in particular, for this will determine whether the arguments advanced in my book are valid or not. In this book I have adopted a definite attitude towards the Gospels. I do not wish to enter into further details at the moment, for my point of view is explicitly stated in the book. But if I am justified in my point of view we shall have to assume that the origin of the Gospels is not nearly so late as contemporary Christian theology often assumes, but that an early date must probably be assigned to them. You know that from the standpoint of spiritual science the origins of the Gospel teaching are to be found in the ancient Mystery teachings. We must see the Mystery of Golgotha as a fulfilment of these ancient teachings. Now such a spiritual conception will run counter to the exegeses of modern historians and theologians who will regard it no doubt as historically unsound. Now it is fairly evident that the Gospels did not exercise any significant influence during the first century, or at least during the first two-thirds of this century. There are indeed Christian theologians today who doubt whether any evidence can be adduced that in the first century of the Christian era people of consequence thought of, or even believed in, the person of Jesus Christ.
Now it will become increasingly evident that if the careful research of the present day broadens its scope and shows itself to be catholic as well as conscientious, then there will be an end to its many scruples. Of course it is possible to draw all kinds of conclusions from certain discrepancies between the Christian and Jewish records. But the fact that the Apocryphal Gospels, i.e. those not officially recognized by the Christian church, are very little known today and are virtually ignored, especially by Christian theologians, militates against these conclusions. The reason for this lack of recognition is that, to a large extent, Christianity, and especially the Mystery of Golgotha, are not apprehended with sufficient spirituality. There was no real understanding of the Pauline distinction between the psychic and the spiritual man. (Corinthians I, chap. XV, 44, 45.) Consider for a moment our division of man into body, soul and spirit, one of the fundamental conceptions of anthroposophy. In reality, Paul who was familiar with the atavistic character of the truths of the ancient Mysteries implied the same as we imply today when we speak of soul and spirit as two members of human nature. This distinction between soul and spirit has virtually been lost in the West. But we cannot understand the real nature of the Mystery of Golgotha unless we have a clear understanding of the distinction between psychic man and spiritual man.
Now first of all I should like to cite an example (which I also referred to some years ago), in order to show you that the facts of external history are often falsely interpreted, especially in relation to the recent investigations into the life of Jesus. I refer to the generally accepted view that the Gospels are of late provenance (note 2). Now many objections can be raised against this view on purely historical grounds. It can be shown, for example, that in the year A.D. 70 Rabbi Gamaliel II was involved in a lawsuit with his sister over an inheritance. Rabbi Gamaliel II was the son of Rabbi Simeon who was the son of that Gamaliel of whom Paul was a pupil. The case came before a judge and it was difficult to determine whether the judge was a Roman with leanings towards Christianity, or perhaps a Jew with leanings towards Christianity. Now Gamaliel pleaded that he was the sole heir because, according to the Mosaic law, daughters could not inherit. The judge demurred: “Since you Jews have lost your country the Thora is no longer valid; only the Gospel is valid, and according to the Gospel a sister can also inherit.” There was no straightforward solution. What happened? Gamaliel II was not only covetous, but also cunning. He requested an adjournment of the proceedings. This was granted and in the interval he bribed the judge. At the second trial he appeared before the same judge who reversed the verdict. The judge confessed that at the first trial he had erred, that the Gospel could indeed apply to such cases, but did not annul the Mosaic law. And to confirm this he quoted Matthew V, 17, in the version which we have today, but with the textual variations arising from the Greek text and the Aramaic text of the Gospel which existed at the time when this judgement was pronounced in the year A.D. 70. In his ruling the judge quoted the Matthew Gospel, whilst the Talmud which recounts the story takes the Matthew Gospel for granted.
It would be possible to adduce considerable evidence to show that there is no reliable historical evidence for not assigning an early date to the Gospels. Historical research will one day vindicate completely the evidence from purely spiritual sources which forms the basis of my book Christianity As Mystical Fact.
Now everything relating to the Mystery of Golgotha conceals the most profound mysteries for the present age. These mysteries will be resolved with the progressive advance of spiritual science. There are many pointers which indicate that these questions are not so simple as people fondly imagine today.
For example, the relationship between Judaism and primitive Christianity in the first century of our era is virtually ignored. There are theologians who study certain Jewish writings in order to find evidence for their various theories. But one can easily demonstrate that these Jewish writings on which they rely did not exist in the first century. One thing appears to be demonstrable historically, namely, that in the second third of the first century a relatively harmonious relationship existed between Judaism and Christianity — in so far as one can speak of Christianity at that period. Generally speaking, when enlightened Jews discussed certain questions with the followers of Jesus Christ they easily arrived at an understanding.

1917-04-10-GA175

Here is the essential difference between the Luke Gospel and the other Gospels. Here the Jews are not condemned as in Matthew, nor the Romans as in Mark, but this Gospel condemns the passions and emotions of mankind as reflected in those who were associated with Christ Jesus. We must therefore give heed to that powerful and significant impulse behind the words of Christ Jesus, an impulse that was not of this world, but which proceeded from the Kingdom of Heaven.
The John Gospel aims to go much further. In this Gospel

it is not simply a small nation such as the Jews which is condemned,

nor a great nation such as the Romans,

nor even the whole of mankind with the negative characteristics it has developed since the Fall,

but this Gospel is directed against those spirits behind the physical world in so far as they have turned aside from the true path.

The Gospel of St. John can only be rightly understood when we realize that,

as the Gospel of St. Matthew is concerned with the Jews,

the Gospel of St. Mark with the Romans and

the Gospel of St. Luke with all those who had succumbed to the Fall,

so the Gospel of St. John is concerned with the spirits of men and those spirits bordering on humanity who fell along with man, whilst Christ Jesus is concerned with the spiritual world itself.

It is very easy for our materialistic epoch to say that whoever holds these views is a fanatic. We must be prepared to put up with this criticism. Nevertheless what I have said is the truth; and we are the more convinced of this, the more closely we look into these things.
This powerful impulse which found fourfold expression in the Gospels shows that Christ was destined to introduce into the world something that had not existed before. The world disapproves and has always disapproved of change, but a new impulse must be given from time to time. It is amply demonstrated in the Gospels that we can only understand the message of these Gospels aright if we see it in the context of the entire Cosmos, as an expression of cosmic events.
This is best illustrated — I refer you to the Mark Gospel, the shortest and most pregnant of the Gospels — if we turn to this Gospel for an answer to the question: who were the first to recognize that Christ Jesus had given to the world that sublime impulse which I have described above? Who first recognized this?
One might be tempted to answer: John the Baptist. But he divined it rather, and this is clearly seen in the description of the meeting between Christ Jesus and John in the fourth Gospel.
Who, then, were the first to recognize Him?
None other than those that were possessed with devils whom Christ had healed. They were the first to cry out, saying, “Thou art the Son of God” — or “Thou art the Holy One of God. And Christ suffered not the devils to speak because they knew Him.”

Spiritual beings therefore were the first to recognize Him, and we are here shown the connection between the word of Christ and the spiritual world. Out of their super-sensible knowledge the demons revealed Christ's contribution to the world long before mankind had the slightest inkling of it. They knew it because He was able to cast them out.

1919-10-27-GA193

comments on the purpose and value of the difference having four gospels, and how the gospels in their current form today need to be complemented with insights from spiritual science in order to offer a path to the Christ

There are people today who do not realize the one-sidedness of the Galileo-Copernican world-conception, or who at least do not see its illusory character, or are too easygoing to examine it. We have just shown how wrong that is. But there are also people today, numberless people who acknowledge a certain half-truth, a very significant half-truth, and who do not go into the question of the purely hypothetical justification of it. Strange as it may appear to many people, it is just as one-sided to view the world solely through the Gospel and reject any other search into true reality, as it is to view the world from the standpoint of Galileo and Copernicus, or of university materialistic science in general.
The Gospel was given to those who lived in the first centuries of Christianity, and to believe that today the Gospel can give the whole of Christianity is simply a half-truth. It is therefore also a half-error which befogs people and thus furnishes Ahriman with the best means of attaining the goal and the triumph of his incarnation.
How numerous are those who think they are speaking out of Christian humility, but in reality out of dreadful arrogance, when they say: “Oh, we need no spiritual science! The homeliness, the simplicity of the Gospels leads us to what men need of the eternal!” A frightful arrogance is expressed, for the most part, in this apparent humility, which can very well be used by Ahriman in the sense I have indicated. For do not forget what I explained at the beginning of today's lecture, how in the time in which the Gospel falls, men were still permeated by the Luciferic impulse in their thought, feeling and general views, and that they could understand the Gospel by a certain Luciferic Gnosis. But the grasp of the Gospel in this old sense is not possible today. No real understanding of the Christ can be gained if one relies merely on the Gospel, especially in the form in which it has been handed down. There exists nowhere today a less true understanding of Christ than in the various faiths and confessions.
The Gospel must be deepened by spiritual science if we wish to gain an actual grasp of the Christ.
It is then interesting to examine the separate Gospels and arrive at their real content. To accept the Gospel as it is and as numberless people accept it today, and particularly as it is taught today, is not a path to Christ; it is a path away from Christ. Hence the confessions are moving further and further away from Christ.
To what sort of Christ-conception does a man come who will accept the Gospel and only the Gospel, without the depth given by spiritual science?
He comes ultimately to a Christ — but that is the utmost that he can reach through the Gospel alone. It is not a reality of the Christ, for today only spiritual science can lead to that. What the Gospel leads to is an hallucination of the Christ, a real inner picture or vision, yet only a picture. The Gospel today provides the way to come to a vision of the Christ, but not to the reality of Christ. That is just the reason why modern theology has become so materialistic. Theological commentators and expounders of the Gospel have asked themselves: What is to be made of the Gospel? They decide at length that in their view the result is similar to what one gets when one examines the case of Paul before Damascus. And then these theologians, who are supposed to confirm Christianity, but who really undermine it, say: Paul was simply ill, suffering from nerves and he had a vision before Damascus.
The point is that through the Gospel itself one can come only to hallucinations, to visions, but not to realities; the Gospel does not give us the real Christ, but only an hallucination of the Christ. The real Christ must be sought today through all that can be gained from a spiritual knowledge of the world.
These very people who swear by the Gospel alone and reject every kind of real spiritual knowledge, form the beginning of a flock for Ahriman when he appears in human shape in modern civilization. From these circles, from these members of confessions and sects who repulse the concrete knowledge brought by spiritual endeavor, whole hosts will develop as adherents of Ahriman. Now this is all beginning to come into existence. It is there, it is at work in present humanity and one who speaks to men today with the knowledge of spiritual science speaks into it, no matter whether he is speaking on social or other questions. He knows where the hostile powers lie, that they live supersensibly and that men are their poor misguided victims. This is the call to humanity: “Free yourselves from all these things that form such a great temptation to contribute to Ahriman's triumph!”
Many people have felt something of this sort. But there is not yet courage everywhere to come to an understanding with the historical impulses of the Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman in the urgent way that is necessary and that is emphasized by Anthroposophy. Even those who have an idea of what is necessary will not go far enough. For instance, look at examples where there arises some knowledge that the secular materialistic science with this Ahrimanic character must be permeated with the Christ Impulse, and how, on the other hand, the Gospel must be illuminated through the explanations of spiritual science. Consider how many people struggle to the point of really shedding light in either of these directions by means of spiritual-scientific knowledge! Yet humanity will only acquire the right attitude to the earthly incarnation of Ahriman if it sees through these things and has the courage, will and energy to illumine both secular science and the Gospel by the Spirit. Otherwise the result is always superficialities. Think, for example, of how Cardinal Newman — who, after all, was an enlightened man, one who followed modern religious development — at the time of his investiture as Cardinal in Rome stated openly in his address that if the Christian Catholic teaching was to survive, a new revelation was necessary. We have no need, however, of a new revelation; the time of revelations in the old sense is over. We need a new science, one that is illumined by the Spirit. But men must have the courage for such a new science.
Think of a literary phenomenon like the Lux Mundi movement that originated with certain eminent theologians, members of the English High Church, at the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties of the last century. It consisted of a series of studies, imbued throughout with the endeavor to build a bridge from secular science to the contents of dogma. One might call it a floundering hither and thither, never a bold grasping of secular science, never an illumination of it with the spirit. There was no unprejudiced examination of the Gospel with the knowledge that the Gospel of itself is not enough today, that it must be elucidated and illumined. But mankind must be courageous in both directions and say: secular science by itself leads to illusion, the Gospel by itself leads to hallucination. The middle way between illusion and hallucination is found only by grasping reality through the Spirit. That is the point.
We must see through such things as these today. Purely mundane science would make men entirely subject to illusion; in fact ultimately they would commit only follies. Quite enough folly is perpetuated today already, for surely the World War catastrophe was a great folly! Yet many people were involved in it who were thoroughly saturated with the official secular science of our time. And if you notice what remarkable psychological phenomena at once crop up when some sect or other places one of the four Gospels in the foreground, then you will more easily understand what I have been saying about the Gospels today. See how strongly inclined to all sorts of hallucinations are sects that pay heed solely to the Gospel of St. John, or solely the Gospel of St. Luke!
Fortunately there are four Gospels, which outwardly contradict one another, and this has so far prevented the great harm which such one-sidedness would cause. By being faced with four Gospels people do not go too far in the direction of the one, but have the others beside it. One Gospel is read aloud on one Sunday and another on another Sunday and so the illusory power of the one is counterbalanced by that of another. A great wisdom lies in the fact that these four Gospels have come down to the civilized world. In this way man is protected from being caught up by some one stream, which will take possession of him — as in the case of so many members of sects — if he is influenced by one Gospel alone. When solely one Gospel works upon him it is particularly clear how this leads at last to hallucination.
In fact, it is essential today to give up much of one's subjective inclination, much of what one is attached to and thinks pious or clever. Mankind must above all seek universality and the courage to look at things from all sides.

1919-11-04-GA193

More and more generally it is being said that people should steep themselves in the very simplicity of the gospels and not attempt to understand the Mystery of Golgotha by entering into the complexities of spiritual science.
Those who feign unpretentiousness in their study of the gospels are the most arrogant of all, for they despise the honest search for knowledge demanded in spiritual science. So arrogant are they that they believe the highest revelations of the spiritual world can be garnered without effort, simply by browsing on the simplicity of the gospels.

What claims to be 'humble' or 'simple' today is often supreme arrogance. In sects, in religious confessions , it is there that the most arrogant people are to be found.

1921-09-GA343

1921-09-26-GA343: Incompatible conceptions of the development of humanity in the modern scientific thinking methods and in the Gospels.

1921-09-27-GA343: The in-streaming of the divine into the word: Gospels.

1921-09-30A-GA343: Reading the Gospels. Truth content and vital content in the Gospels.

1921-09-29A-GA343

The gospels in various perspectives: their meaning for alchemists, philologically ..

synopsis: Germinating speech forms in Anthroposophy. Differentiated speech and the nature of sound. Earlier and future relationships to sound. Creative power of speech in the Gospels. The Mass as expression of the entire pastoral process. The Sermon. The intellectualistic process or image-rich speech in relation to community building. The meaning of symbols in the sermon. The evangelists in their meaning for alchemists; the Gospels analysed philologically. Various philosophic systems as exercises in thought. Anthroposophical help in arriving at images. Anthroposophy and religion.

1921-10-01A-GA343

lecture titled 'Composition of the Gospels'

synopsis: Harmony of the four Gospels. The Wise Men from the Orient's stellar wisdom (Mathew Gospel) and shepherds' experience in the fields (Luke's Gospel). Changes in mankind's state of mind through evolution. From heart-felt experience to outer knowledge. Composition of the 13 chapters of the Mathew Gospel. Parables given to people and parables for the disciples only. Ears that hear in error and eyes that sleep (Mat 13,15). Differences between the organisation of hearing and seeing. Breathing, speaking, hearing. Christian community building. Material still to be discussed.

quote A

If we consider how to enter into the Gospels in the sense of working with the Gospel processes, then we first of all discover before our souls how in a most particular way the Gospels can be related to, and it is of course necessary, regarding this point, that everyone approaches them from a personal perspective. You then generally understand the content when such a perspective is asserted. For this reason, you may allow me to say something personal in today's lecture. I'm urged to do this because it is the best way for you to receive the following. When I approach the Gospels, it often happens that I have quite a distinctive feeling that within the Gospels, as far as they can be understood, what has been thought and said about them — and you could even, I say this explicitly, however often you approach them — always encounter something new. You can never know enough about the Gospels. Learning about the Gospels is linked to something else; it is linked to the fact that the further you occupy yourself with them, the more your admiration grows for the depth of the content, for just that, I could call it the immeasurable, into which you can become immersed, which calls for the actual experience, that there is no end to this immersion into the depths, that this admiration increases greatly with every deepening of the Gospel involvement.
There are however difficulties along this path which come to the fore when some strides are made into the Gospel — I stress the words "into" — that make you stumble over the inherited content. For actual spiritual researchers this creates less of a disturbance, because such a person would place the primordial Gospel into, what one could nearly call, a wordless text, and that makes it easier not to stumble over the inherited content. Admiration as a basis for reading the Gospels, seems to me an indispensable element for individuals, as a foundation for their religious learning processes. I once more need to stress that it is not important to characterise religious life in general, but to supply a foundation for the teaching process, in any case for religious processes as such.
...
You need to allow all four to work on you and then wait to see what comes out of this, not by first prescribing what the unopposed abstract truth should be and then only look for all which you can eliminate which contradicts the abstract truth. The truth needs to be experienced, and the Gospels themselves are such written works in which truth can be experienced; however, you need to have patience in order to experience this truth in the Gospels.
You can of course object and say, you will never actually be able to experience the truth within the Gospels. I have to agree with your point of view because I still never presume to believe that I have found the truth of the Gospels completely; by continuously making further progress I have the decisive feeling that remaining patient in waiting is the basis, because the certainty of truth does not diminish, but becomes increasingly bigger. You can calmly feel the truth as an ideal placed before you at an immeasurable distance yet with the awareness that you are on your way towards it. These are the things you need to place in the soul with Gospel reading, and shape in your heart, otherwise you would actually never be able to cope with the Gospels in a real way.
Of course, you could ask: Should I do this? — It will be shown in the next few days, that yes, one should do this after all.

1921-10-03A-GA343

for longer extract see also: Gnosis and gnostic teachings#1921-10-03A-GA343

.. one has, and must, have an experience when one reads the Gospels with an anthroposophical approach, by reading them time and time again. This admiration of the reader is always renewed with each reading by the conviction that one can never learn everything from the Gospels because they go into immeasurable depths.
...
.. our current tragedy, that our time has been forced — really out of the very superficial honesty, which prevail in such areas — that the Gospel of St John has been completely eliminated and only the Synoptics accepted. If you experience the Gospels through ever greater wonderment at each renewed reading, and when you manage to delve ever deeper and deeper into the Gospels, then it gives you a harmony of the Gospels. You only reach the harmony of the Gospels when you have penetrated St John's Gospel because all together, they don't form a threefold but a fourfold harmony.
... What can really be experienced inwardly as a harmony in the four Gospels must come about in a living way, as the living truth and therefore just life itself. Out of the experience, out of every experience which is deepened and warmed by the history of the origin of Christianity, out of this experience must flow the religious renewal.

It can't be a result out of the intellect, nor theoretical exchanges about belief and knowledge, but only from the deepening of the felt, sensed, content which is able to be deepened in such a way as it was able to truly live in the souls of the first Christians.

Discussion

Note 1 - Cosmic rythms (of the zodiac) in the gospels

Hermann Beckh (1875-1937)

'Mark's Gospel: The cosmic rhythm' (2015 in EN, original in DE 1928 as 'Der kosmische Rhythmus im Markusevangelium', new DE edition 1997)
- relates the narration of the gospel of Mark to the path of the sun through the twelve zodiacal signs
- mentions work of Arthur Drews, Eduard Stucken (author of Astralmythen der Hebraeer, Babylonier, und Aegypter, Leipzig, 1896-1907) and Andrzej Niemojewski.
'John’s Gospel: The cosmic rhythm – stars and stones' (2015 in EN, original in DE 1930 as 'Der kosmische Rhythmus, das Sternengeheimnis und Erdengeheimnis im Johannesevangelium')
- In the Introduction, Beckh mentions favourably Wilhelm Kaiser's Die geometrischen Vorstellungen in der Astronomie (1928), and referred to The Novices of Sais, of Novalis.

Various notes

The cosmic rhythm in Beckh's exposition, was for Mark's gospel understood more in connection with the "earthly" zodiac of the signs, and for John's gospel more in connection with the "stellar" zodiac of the constellations, while, at the time of the beginning of the Christian era, these were coincident.

Note 2 - Non canonical apocrypha

for an overview of other gospels, gnostic and other - see wikipedia List of Gospels and wikipedia New Testament apocrypha
certain books were removed from the New Testament in AD 367 by Athanasius of Alexandria, in AD393 by the Council of Hippo and in AD397 by the Council of Carthage
- see oa source 1

Related pages

References and further reading

see also: Gospel of John as an initiation document#References and further reading
Leo Tolstoy: The Gospel in Brief (1892)
Emil Bock: 'Studies in the Gospels', Vol 1 &2 (2009) (in DE as 'Das Evangelium. Gesammelte Betrachtungen zum Neuen Testament' (1984), originally published as 'Beiträge zum Verständnis des Evangeliums' (1950 based on typoscript 1927-29))
Rudolf Frieling (1901-1986):
- The Complete Old Testament Studies (2022)
- Vol 4: Gesammelte Gesammelte Schriften zum Alten und Neuen Testament / Studien zum Neuen Testament: Die heilige Zahl im Johannes-Evangelium. Agape. Die Verklärung auf dem Berg
- furthermore also by Frieling:
  - Hidden treasure in the psalms (2015)
  - Old Testament studies (2015)
Otto Palmer:
- Wege zum Evangelium (1950)
- Rudolf Steiner und das Evangelium (1977)
Alfred Heidenreich
- The Unknown in the Gospels ('1972)
- Healing in the gospels (1980, first published as a series of articles in The Christian Community 1936, 1954-1968)
Ormond Edwards: 'A new chronology of the gospels' (1976)
Paul W. Scharff: commentaries on gospels of John, Luke, Matthew - online here
Friedrich Göbel: 'Die Evangelisten. Eine biographische Betrachtung (1995, lectures in period 1991-1994)
Clopper Almon: A Study Companion for Rudolf Steiner's Lectures on the Gospel of Mark (2016)
Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel by Peter Selg - Insights Into a New Understanding of the Christ Mystery
Judith von Halle: 'Illness and healing and the mystery language of the gospels' (2008 in EN, original in DE 2007 as 'Von Krankheiten und Heilungen und von der Mysteriensprache in den Evangelien'