The Nativity, Page 5

Only reverently can we now approach the event of the birth of the Nathan Jesus child to the very young Mary, barely into childbearing age. In Occult Science (OS) we are told that the division of the human being into two sexes (Gen 1,27; 2,18-25; 5,2; Mt 19,4; Mk 10,6) was approximately contemporaneous with the infusion of the Luciferic influence into the human astral body (Gen 3); prior thereto reproduction by division did not involve the same physical process as thereafter, and it was not until after such perverting influence that humanity became conscious of the act of procreation.¹³ The soul of the Nathan Mary, which received the portion of Eve’s etheric body held back by the divine powers and not affected by the Fall, had not gone through prior incarnations, and was thus unspoiled, virginal. It had not built up any instinctive consciousness or even awareness of the normal human procreative function. So the Nathan Mary could not have perceived its occurrence in the same manner as a normal person whose etheric andphysical bodies bear the full effect of the Fall, and her soul would have remained virginal thereafter. She knew not any relationship with her husband in the normal sense—whether or not any had occurred. Therefore, her etheric body could not carry the impress of such knowledge and so, the etheric body being what molds the physical, her physical body remained (or resumed its status as) virginal also. She remained pure after conception of the Nathan Jesus child to the time of her death. The six siblings of Jesus (four brothers and two sisters; Mk 6,3) were born to the Solomon Mary, as we shall presently see. Steiner could thus properly refer to the Nathan Mary as the true virgin of the two Marys, though the physical blood of her Son was of the line of David.

It is essential to carry this somewhat further, and to bring into it the activity of the (Nirmanakaya of) Buddha. Of necessity we must bring in some things Steiner said in Rosicrucian Esotericism (RE), Lect. 5, beginning with the passage below:

Now, before earthly fertilization, before the physical act of love, there is reflected in this play of astral forces, the individuality, the being who is coming down again to the earth. That is the essential reality in the procreative act. So one can say that before physical fertilization, what is descending from the spiritual world is also instrumental in bringing about the meeting of the man and woman. A wonderfully intimate play of forces from the spiritual world is taking place here. The being who is descending is, generally speaking, connected from the beginning with the product of fertilization. It is emphatically not the case that an individuality connects with it only after a certain time. From the moment of conception this individuality is in touch with the outcome of physical procreation. There are exceptions, of course, there, too. During the first days after conception, this spiritual individuality who is descending does not yet actually affect the development of the physical human being, but it is close by, as it were, is already in contact with the developing embryo. The actual attachment takes place from about the eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first days after conception; what is descending from a higher world is then already working together with the being who is in process of coming into existence.

He then tells what is introduced into the child by the female and male elements. Essentially, “The principle of generality, homogeneity, originates from the female element. . . . The male element provides individuality. Hence, not until bisexuality had been established on the earth were successive embodiments or reincarnations possible.” Prior thereto the primal female element (Prov 8,22-31) caused the reproduction of totally homogeneous (prospectively human) beings without any real Ego (Individuality) presence. “It is essentially the etheric body that is worked upon by the female element.” But without the male, these would be “copies only.” (As we know from Steiner elsewhere, each of us comprises both male and female elements today. Whatever our physical body is, the etheric is the reverse. The female element tends toward the security of the past, the male toward the thrust into the future.) We leap forward:

We said that from the eighteenth to the twenty-first day after conception onwards the Ego is already working on the embryo; but not until much later, after six months, do other forces also work on the embryo, forces that determine the karma of the human being. This can be expressed by saying that the web woven out of karma there takes hold; gradually these forces come into play.¹⁴ Now exceptions occur here, too, so that later on an exchange of the Ego may take place. We will speak of that later. The Ego is the first factor to intervene for the purpose of development.

. . . it is the individual who is in the process of incarnating who brings together those who love one another. . . . The astral passion surging hither and thither on the earth below, mirrors the astral substances of the descending entity. . . . When we think through this thought to its conclusion, we must say that the reincarnating individual definitely participates in the choice of his parents. . . . The parents’ love is therefore the answer to the child’s love, it is the responsive love.

We can now begin to appreciate what Luke was saying in 1,41-44, when he describes the Nathan Mary’s visit to Elizabeth:

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leapedin her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the voice of your greeting came to my ears, the babe in my womb leaped for joy.”

What was here being told was that the fallen soul of Adam caused the embryo, during its last trimester in Elizabeth’s womb, to react to the proximity of not only its unfallen sister-soul, the Nathan Soul, but also of the unfallen sister-soul of Eve, the Eternal Feminine, in Mary, both of whom Elizabeth calls “Blessed.”

Only now can we begin to appreciate what Luke’s master, Paul, was flashing with his references (Rom 5,12-14; 1 Cor 15,45-49) to the “First and Second Adam.” Luke’s Nativity account gives them both, the first was in Elizabeth’s womb and the second in Mary’s.