Bush, Page 3

INTPN fairly states the view the Judeo-Christian faith has developed with respect to this book in opening its Introduction thereto, “The Book of Job has to do with the most painful and unavoidable questions which can arise in human experience,” stemming from the existence of arbitrary suffering and its meaning. Ask the person in the street what the book (Job) stands for. The likely response will be James’ aphorism which probably expresses the extent of real knowledge modern theology has to offer on the subject (i.e., the net result of extensive treatises and the substance of the first sentence of the Introduction to Job in 15 AB xv)—“the patience of Job,” Jam 5,11 (KJV), variously translated “perseverance” (NIV), “steadfastness” (RSV), “endurance” (KJV/NIV— INT) or otherwise. That knowledge, i.e., Job’s “patience,” is certainly valid as far as it goes, but is merely part of the problem or “Mystery,” and does not alone suffice for understanding the deeper message. While I am not aware that Rudolf Steiner found the time to ever explicitly address, in any depth, the fuller meaning of this book, he does give definite pointers, such as in From Jesus to Christ (JTC), Lect. 5, pp. 94-97; Supersensible Knowledge (SKN), Lect. 3 (differently translated as the first lecture in The Origin of Suffering/The Origin of Evil/Illness and Death [OSOE]); Turning Points in Spiritual History (TPSH), Lect. 4, pp. 210- 213; and The Karma of Materialism (KM), Lect. 3, p. 44. Other points in his works that are relevant to various portions of Job will be taken up in the Commentary or elsewhere. Notably, however, in Manifestations of Karma (MK), Lect. 3, p. 63, we read,

The spiritual investigator must always in the case of illness consider, on the one hand, the share the physical body may have in this particular case, and, on the other, the share of the etheric body and the astral body; for all three principles may be involved in the disease.

I-37 is taken from MK, Lects. 3, 6 and 10, and more fully elaborates this briefly stated point. Suffice it for now to say that the human being’s Fall (Gen 3) resulted in the imposition of divine remedies for each of the “Three Bodies”, pain (astral body), toil (etheric body) and death (physical body), (Gen 3,16,17,19; see also #5 in “Three Bodies” below).

As one comes to a fuller understanding of anthroposophy and then investigates Job more fully, it can be seen to portray the picture of the “first Adam” (see “First and Second Adam”), before his descent into materiality, at a time when the spiritual powers exposed him to the Luciferic influence (Gen 3). The only condition was that his “life” must be “spared” (Job 2,6; cf. Cain’s lament in Gen 4,13-15 immediately following the expulsion from the Garden). Reincarnation was about to begin with the Fall. Job’s three friends represent, successively, his three bodies, starting from the oldest, the physical, etheric and astral (see #2 in “Three Bodies). His youngest member (Elihu), the Ego, does not make its entrance until Job 32. Immediately prior to that (Job 29-31) he yearns for the days in the Garden before he descended into materiality. What Job experiences through the body of the book is the agony of the “three bodies” and the darkening of the face of God (see “Mysteries” below). In the latter chapters of the poetic portion of the story, we see the Ego progressing toward the perfection of the “three bodies,” and in the prose conclusion, Job 42,7-17, the wrath of God is directed toward the “three friends” who are obliged to offer up a “burnt offering” (i.e., themselves being purified thereby; see also “Fire” in Vol. 2). Whereupon, Job was not only restored to his former position with spiritual beings, but he was transformed by being more blessed than he was before (vs 12).

Steiner makes it clear, as does the book of Job itself, that Job suffered innocently. The human being was infected in the Garden before the Ego had descended into it, and thus was not morally responsible for what existed in its “members” (Rom 7,21-25; see The Concepts of Original Sin and Grace [OSG]), thus laying the just and reciprocal basis for the “Grace” that was to be later bestowed upon it freely. But the innocence of Job, as Steiner says, illustrates even more that suffering is not, in the given personality, necessarily due to the sins of that Individuality. Suffering is, in and of itself, a matter of upward transformation, spiritualization, the reascent of the human being. A soul can incarnate for the purpose of suffering to overcome the karma of humanity as a whole, or of other individuals. Job is mentioned in only three books of the Bible, Job, Ezekiel and James. Ezekiel identifies him as one of three paragons of virtue, Noah, Daniel and Job (Ezek 14,12-20; see #46 in “Three Bodies”). This would seem to justify Steiner’s view, not unique to him, that Job’s suffering was innocent, that is, his incarnation had a certain sacrificial character in it of “overcoming evil with good” (Rom 12,21) in curing not his own but the karma of humanity. As in Paul’s case, for him to live was Christ, though, as seen in chapters 29-31, to die was gain (Phil 1,21).

When Paul said “We preach Christ crucified” (1 Cor 1,23; 2,2; see “Crucified”), he was giving Christendom a message it has yet to understand. It is implicit in his denouement where he describes Christ as the “first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor 15,20), for “each in his own order” (vs 23), to become kindred “fruit,” must likewise suffer the crucifixion of the “three bodies” during the course of “perfection.” For a normal human being this cannot be accomplished within the course of a single lifetime. We see this in the long drama of Lazarus/John’s Apocalypse (Rev). See “First Born/Fruits.”

In the light of anthroposophy, every single Biblical use of the term “bush(es)” (Gen 21,15; Ex 3,2-4; Deut 33,16; Job 30,4,7; Mk 12,26; Lk 6,44; 20,37; Acts 7,30,35) can be seen to involve the human Ego, the lower “I Am,” either alone or in conjunction with the higher “I Am” of Christ. In the passage above, Job speaks of “men who are younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock,” who “make sport of me.” They only gather the “leaves of bushes,” having no grasp (comprehension or vision) of the whole “bush” (Ego). Job is an old soul, such, for instance, as we have seen in Zarathustra (see “The Nativity”). These souls return to Earth sacrificially and, in humble service to humanity, suffer the barbs of others “younger,” i.e., less spiritually mature, than they—in the pattern of the suffering servant, Jesus of Nazareth. We can even see in Job’s reference to “the dogs of my flock” some indication of the future redemption by the Human Kingdom of the lower three Kingdoms (Rom 8,19-23; Eph 1,9-10), animals who only eat the “leaves of bushes,” who, during the course of human evolution, descended prematurely into materiality and were thereby “driven out from among men” to “dwell in holes of the earth and of the rocks,” merely “braying” “among the bushes” or Egos of human beings (vs 8). From another perspective, the Christ-inspired Ego is tormented by its lower “three bodies,” especially by the “Wild Animals” of its astral body which “make sport” of it. It was these of which Mark spoke about Christ’s temptations (Mk 1,13). But in all respects, the “bush” represents the Ego, higher, lower or both.