Overview, Page 6

Approximately 1900 B.C. we come to Abraham. Because of the nature of his brain, he became the ancestor of, among others and most significantly, the Hebrew people. If he were able to “number the stars” his descendants would be like them (Gen 15,5). It is a perversion of the original meaning handed down by Moses that our Bibles now say, most particularly in passages subsequent to Gen 15,5, that Abraham’s descendants were to be as numerous as the stars of the sky or the sands of the sea. What was meant was that his descendants would be molded by the heavenly spirits reflected in the twelve zodiacal signs. It was in accordance with this that he became the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, not to mention the twelve of Ishmael, and that Jesus later patterned his own followers in terms of twelve, and that St. John’s vision sees the return to the Holy City in terms of twelve. The Biblical account from beginning to end reflects this truth. But the knowledge of it was hidden, along with much else, until revealed by Steiner. Significantly, this revelation came 1,900 years after Christ’s Incarnation, equaling the period between Abraham and Christ, the significance of which will become more apparent as one meditates on the higher meaning of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Genesis account takes us through the patriarchal era and into Egyptian slavery.

The account of Moses’ birth and training is an account of his Initiation into the higher Mysteries, first those of Egypt and later of the Chaldeans through his father-in-law, Reuel or Jethro. Of paramount importance is what we read in Ex 3, the account of the burning bush. We are here dealing with the descent of the Ego, the “I Am,” to its dwelling place within the earthly human being. For now, it can be said that the Ego of each of the lower three kingdoms (Animal, Plant and Mineral) dwells in higher worlds and not on Earth. Further, the Ego that belongs to those kingdoms is not an individual one but collective. The human’s Ego has dwelt on Earth at least from Atlantean times, but only as a highly immature creation and even then not as an individual Ego. Rather, it commenced as a Group Ego, so that human beings thought of themselves not as individuals but only as members of a tribe or clan united by blood kinship with some common ancestor, for the blood was the only entry port for the Ego into the human being. The Hebrews’ ascription of themselves as children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a reflection of this tribal unity, which of course, was broken down further into individual tribes and clans. Ever so gradually over time the Ego approached the individual human being. But it was Moses to whom the essential revelation of this development was given by Yahweh-Eloha. Moses was first shown that the Ego, though purified between lives from its impure astral body by the fire of what has been otherwise characterized as “purgatory,” is not consumed thereby. The Ego is the “burning bush which is not consumed.” Later, upon asking the “Name” of Yahweh, Moses is told, “I Am the I Am.” One has to search to find any two translations of the Bible that connect the two “I Am’s” with the same word, and will probably not find any that uses the simple “the.” But the translations are usually footnoted with an indication of uncertainty. Steiner assures us, and the overall account verifies, that “the” is the ancient and true meaning.

We are told that the people were fed by “Manna” in the wilderness. “Manna” is essentially an Oriental term, but it is also the term applicable to the stage of spirituality that the human being will attain when its Ego has become the complete master of its astral body—a development still far in the future for all but those very few who are able to attain to a state of Initiation and developed clairvoyance (as contrasted with atavistic clairvoyance, which is a remnant of old consciousness to be either overcome or converted). The “manas” state is the state next above the Ego in the sevenfold and ninefold characterizations of the human being. It represented a special form of spiritual leadership (i.e., spiritual food; 1 Cor 10,3) given to the people in the wilderness. Moses lived in the Third Cultural Era, the Chaldo-Egyptian, and thus this “Manna” is described in the letter to the angel of the third church, as is the “new name... which no one knows except him who receives it” (Rev 2,17). As Steiner points out, the only name that meets that criterion is the name “I” or “I Am,” for no one can speak that except in reference to oneself.

The “I Am” thus introduced for the first time to Moses runs through the prophets, then through the heights of John’s Gospel, and finally in this and other passages of his Apocalypse.

We shall see how abundantly the truth of the three bodies is also disclosed. And we shall hardly ever come to understand Job without seeing that his three friends represent these progressive bodies, while the “youngest” (Job 32,4) represents the Ego, and the two monsters at the end represent the Lesser and Greater Guardians of the Threshold (terms extensively discussed by Steiner in other contexts). When Job has passed these, he is restored to all that he had before he was tempted—a clear allegorical reference to the Fall and eventual ascension of the human being.

Paul says that Christ died at “the right time,” and the Baptist proclaimed that “the time is fulfilled.” These proclamations are full of meaning. From the time of the Fall until the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being had been in uninterrupted descent into materiality and mineralization. This had progressed to the point of no return. Had humanity hardened further, salvation from its hardened state would have been irretrievable. The Divine Powers had foreseen this, and the descent of the Christ from highest heaven to the Sun and then downward to Incarnation had been prepared over the millennia. A special people had to be set apart to prepare the inherited bodies for that event. They were indeed set apart, a “chosen race.” As a race, their function was fulfilled with the Incarnation, though Paul recognized and agonized over the fact that they would be among the last to come to this realization. In fact, all racial, national and other such prideful distinctions must fade away commensurate with the degree to which humanity takes the Christ into itself.

“The Nativity” itself is too magnificent and complex for summary, but follows in some detail immediately after this Overview. The two apparently conflicting Gospel accounts must be addressed as a unity because neither is adequate standing alone, inasmuch as they tell of the births of two different children, one descended from David’s son Solomon (Mt 1,6) and the other from David’s son Nathan (Lk 3,31). This astounding and, Steiner alone (almost, as we shall see) excepted, universally over-looked or ignored fact, takes on unbelievable force when the full picture of the Incarnation, heretofore “hidden,” is seen to be so perfectly and literally revealed by scripture.