The Nativity, Page 11

If Steiner ever went further to discuss the significance of the 77 names, or the Anna passage in Lk 2,36-38, I am not aware of it. However, it would seem that certain things necessarily follow from what he said above. First, note that in I-39 Luke gives 42 + 1 generations for David through Jesus. Earlier (p. 37) we saw that (omitting David, already counted here) Luke lists 14 generations from Abraham through Jesse (as compared to 13 by Matthew). Let us now enumerate those he lists (Lk 3,23-38) from Adam (and also, for comparison, from God) through Abraham’s father, Terah, and then see whether the entire Lucan list equals 77:

It seems certain, inasmuch as Luke understood Adam to be the “First Man,” that he would have started with him and not with God. If so, it was necessary to insert one additional name, even though perhaps not historical (Arni and Admin most likely being one, as noted earlier [^{fn 2}]), in order to get to his vital number 77. Thus, only the third total can be accepted as being in accordance with his intent, and only in this manner can it be seen that Luke was not in error in presenting what he intended to say—which was not earthly history but spiritual truth.

That such was his intent seems clearly to be confirmed by the stress upon years in the prophetess Anna passage (Lk 2,36-38). We see there that Anna had lived a total of 77 years either as a virgin or a widow (both of which have deep esoteric meaning relating to purity and devotion) and a total of 84 years (“great age,” esoteric for wisdom) when she recognized the Master. According to WNWD, the name “Anna” comes from the Greek which in turn derives from the Hebrew chana, meaning “grace,” and is expressed there in the name “Hannah” (and seems also related to the Jewish festival “Hanuka,” which according to WNWD is literally chanuka). The number 77 thus expresses humankind’s perfecting process up to the final seven years, the twelfth septenary, which comes about by virtue of “grace.” Here Luke merges the concepts seven and twelve in the number 84, the product of the two.²⁵

The interrelationship between the Essenic Matthew and the Buddhistic Luke, and the probability that neither was oblivious by that time of the other, seems strongly shown by another fact. We know that Paul was Luke’s mentor (Col 4,14; 2 Tim 4,11; Philem 1,24). From The Essene Odyssey (TEO), Chaps. 12 and 14 (see also 5 ABD, “Damascus” and “Damascus Rule [CD]”) we now know something of Damascus as a Nazorean (Essenite) setting and of Paul’s connection with the Nazoreans after conversion. In The Beginnings of Christianity (BC), Chap. 11, we are told how Paul had certain relationships with Gnosticism and yet at the same time how “other scholars have urged that nearly everything in [Ephesians] can be derived from Essenism and the Dead Sea Scrolls.” And not only was Paul’s first Christian training in Damascus (Acts 9), but he himself tells the Galatians that he later returned to Damascus for further spiritual progress (Gal 1,17). We also have fairly clear indications that Paul followed the practices of the Nazirites (Num 6,1-21, Acts 18,18 and 21,23-26). It seems highly likely that there is a connection between the “Nazirites and Nazareth.”²⁶ All this points toward a Paul, and thus a Luke, quite familiar with the Essenic expectation. If this be true, as it would appear, then Paul seems to be expressing the Essenic expectation in Rom 11,1-6, and if so this suggests that the “works” to which he was referring were those done as a faithful descendant of Abraham during the 42 generations. That he speaks of the present status of the Covenant as applying only to “a remnant, chosen by grace [my emphasis],” seems powerfully connected with Luke’s giving us the prophetess Anna, “Grace,” to illustrate the numerological secrets of 77 and 84.

The two Jesus boys, having fused into one at “twelve” years of age, can now, as the Jesus of Nazareth, commence the real perfection of the human being to the stage necessary to be able to receive, at age “Thirty,” the Christ Spirit at Baptism. This is expressed by Luke’s saying, in Lk 2,52, that he thereafter “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (I-42 shows that this means “wisdom, beauty and strength” as metaphors for “manas, buddhi and atma,” see also I-9).