The Nativity, Page 10

The hereditary aspects of the human body thus prepared for Zarathustra’s return were mainly those of the physical body and the etheric body. The other two elements of the human being, the astral body and the Ego, would also have to be adequately prepared. “For an event of such stupendous importance [as the Incarnation] this could not be accomplished by one personality, and two were necessary. [This is entirely in line with the Essenic expectation of two Messiahs.] The physical body and the etheric body were prepared in the personality with whom the Gospel of St. Matthew is primarily concerned; the astral body and Ego-principle were prepared in the personality of whom the Gospel of St. Luke tells. . . .” Here Steiner equates this division to that of the fourfold human being in a state of sleep, when the physical and etheric bodies remain in bed, while the Ego and the astral body withdraw and the astral body soars into the cosmos, the zodiacal world of the stars (hence the “astral body”; see I-10 and also OS, Chap. 2, pp. 27-28). Unfortunately, Steiner leaves us at this seemingly mystifying point. How is it that the physical and etheric bodies are said to relate to the Matthew account and the astral body and Ego to the Luke account when we have seen that the Zarathustra Ego of the Matthew account leaves the three bodies of the Solomon Jesus to enter the three bodies of the Nathan Jesus child of the Luke account? This is an example of where one must apply what is elsewhere given in order to make sense of the statement. We have already seen (^{fn 17}) that the Solomon child was probably at least fourteen when the Nathan child was twelve. At fourteen, the Zarathustra Ego had utilized everything it acquired by inheritance by way of the physical and etheric sheaths (^{fn 19}), and it was ready to enter into the period of development of the astral body (see I-26). For that, it needed what was in the Nathan Jesus child. All development by the Zarathustra being from that point to the Baptism was in the three bodies of the Nathan Jesus.

Inasmuch as the physical and etheric bodies are related to the sevenfold Solar system and Time, the secret of 6 x 7 applies to them, while the astral body and Ego relate to timelessness and to the zodiacal forces, so that the secret of 11 x 7 applies to them. In each case, the final seven represents perfection. So in Matthew, the body prepared for the Solomon Jesus child (Zarathustra) is 6 x 7, or 42, generations, while in Luke, the body prepared for the Nathan Jesus child (the unspoiled “Second Adam”) is 11 x 7, or 77 generations.²⁴ The fruits of the two become one after twelve years, so that by the end of that generation of thirty years, the “Son of God,” the Christ, can enter at the Baptism—“You are my begotten son, today I have begotten you” (Ps 2,7; see also Mt 3,17; Mk 1,11; Lk 3,22).

Accordingly, in GSMt, Lect. 6, Steiner says that Luke’s Gospel lists 77 “generations” from Adam to Jesus, pointing out the different meaning of the term “generation” as it applied to those names prior to Abraham. Before Abraham the human soul condition was different, especially the power of memory, which flowed in the “Blood” through a series of generations, so that the individual’s direct memory extended before birth and included the ancestors’experiences. Thus, a name does not refer to a single individual but to a succession of individuals connected by a common memory thread. So, in Lect. 6, he went on to say:

It will now be easier for you to realize that the 77 names enumerated in St. Luke’s Gospel extend over very long periods, actually reaching back to the time when the Being we may denote as the divine-spiritual entity in man was incarnated for the first time in a human physical body. The other aspect presented in the Gospel is this.—One who in passing through the 77 stages in the Great Mysteries had succeeded in purifying his soul from everything absorbed by humanity in Earth-existence, attained the state that is possible today only when a man is free of his physical body and can live entirely in the astral body and Ego. He is able, then, to pour his being over the whole surrounding Cosmos from which the Earth itself arose. Such was the aim of the Initiation in these Mysteries. A man had then reached the level of the Divine-Spiritual Power which drew into the astral body and Ego-bearer of the Nathan Jesus.

The Nathan Jesus was to exemplify that which man receives, not from earthly but from heavenly conditions of existence. Hence the Gospel of St. Luke describes the Divine-Spiritual Power by which the astral body and Ego of the Nathan Jesus had been permeated. The Gospel of St. Matthew describes the Divine-Spiritual Power through which the inner organ for the Jahve-consciousness had been brought into existence in Abraham; and this same Power was working in the physical body and etheric body through 42 generations, constituting a line of heredity.