Peter, James and John, Page 12

“Eleven”

Before bringing our reflection upon the composition of the Twelve to a close, let us look for a moment at a further significance of, and reason for, the emphasis by the synoptics, in the passages designated above, upon the number “eleven.”

For this purpose, I refer to Stebbing’s The Secret of Numbers (SN). Immediately following the title page he quotes from Steiner, without otherwise citing its source, the following:

Those who deepen themselves in what is called in the Pythagorean sense “the study of numbers” will learn through this symbolism of numbers to understand life and the world.

Stebbing’s brief discussion of the number “eleven” is as follows:

The quality of the number Eleven is clearly seen if we place an eleven-pointed star beside a twelve-pointed star, as suggested by John W. Barton.

By gazing upon the eleven-pointed star and reflecting upon it we come to feel its form as not quite satisfying. The twelve-pointed star is more harmonious.

This is an indication that the eleven is not yet true perfection and does not represent the divine. On the way thereto, further hurdles have to be overcome, for perfection or completion are [sic.] not reached easily. We can think of the several team games which demand eleven participants. They suggest imperfection with the endeavor to [r]each perfection, and this is exhibited by every team, even the best.

The number eleven is a number which in one aspect represents imperfection aiming at perfection. It can also be seen as a symbol of harmony and discord.

In this light, profound wisdom is indicated by the synoptic passages referring to the “eleven,” for we know that even they were not yet “Perfect.”

One who doubts the verity of this observation on the number eleven should reflect upon the meaning it gives when used in other passages of scripture. For instance, consider the following:

Gen 32,22: The same night he arose and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok.

Gen 37,9: Then he dreamed another dream, and told it to his brothers, and said, “Behold, I have dreamed another dream; and behold, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars were bowing down to me.”

Here Joseph represents the “Perfect(ing)” element among the sons of Jacob. Without him, they were not complete. In Gen 32,28-32, Jacob is given a new “Name” and asks the “Name” of God, but that is not given to him—the “Twelve” tribes (Jacob’s “Twelve” children) were not yet to that point, but had to wait until it was first given to Moses in Ex 3. Even then, it was the mere inception of the indwelling of the individual Ego, which would not reach the realm of the twelvefold Holy City until Rev 19,12 and 21,12 (see “I AM”).

Ex 26,7: You shall also make curtains of goats’ hair for a tent over the tabernacle; eleven curtains shall you make.

While the tabernacle, tent and most holy place of the mercy seat, as prescribed in Ex 26 and 36, are all somewhat obscure to modern thinking, we note that in both chapters there are eleven “curtains” for the tent covering (there were ten for the tabernacle) and then a “veil” for the interior “most holy place” of the “mercy seat.” A “curtain” and a “veil” both serve a similar function, that of concealing. Immediately two New Testament passages come to mind. One is Paul’s reference in Heb 8,5 to Moses’ account in Ex 25,40, where Paul first states that the earthly sanctuary is “a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary,” then goes on to quote God’s instructions to Moses, “See that you make everything according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.” The second is the Gospel account that the veil of the temple was rent as Jesus died (Mt 27,51). Why were there not a zodiacal “Twelve” curtains to begin with? Because the phrase “twelve curtains” is a spiritual oxymoron. Curtains conceal, but the “Perfect(ing)” “Twelve” reveals. Thus, the twelfth is a veil which is torn in two when the Christ by his death has revealed the heavenly pattern.

Deut 1,2: It is eleven days’ journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Seir to Kadeshbarnea.

The suggestion here is that the journey to the promised land is not complete at Kadeshbarnea.

Judg 16,5: And the lords of the Philistines came to her and said to her, “Entice him, and see wherein his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to subdue him; and we will each give you eleven hundred pieces of silver.”

Recognizing, in the light of anthroposophy, the spiritual sight ancient prophecy still held at that time, it is hard not to see a relationship between the elements of this account and those of the betrayal by Judas. (Compare the comments in “The Nativity” about the account of Solomon’s great wisdom in 1 K 3,16-28.) And it was by virtue of the similar betrayal by Judas that the “Twelve” were reduced to eleven.

Mt 20,1-16: (This is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard who were hired—see vss 6 and 9—at the eleventh hour and received as much as those who had worked all day in the heat.)

In this parable, the point made by the number eleven is the imminence of the days’ end, the time just before it is over. In the Commentary on Revelation we shall see how the end is delayed until the zodiacal 144,000 have been brought in (Rev 7,4 and 14,1,3). Yet there is to be no distinction between those brought in immediately before the completion and those who came in first.

Lk 2,36-38: (This is the scene in Luke’s Nativity account which tells of the prophetess Anna.)

Earlier in this essay we referred to this passage as it related to “Grace.” Our point now is the emphasis Luke placed upon the distinction between the numbers “eleven” and “Twelve.” This is shown in “The Nativity” in two ways. Luke’s genealogy lists seventy-seven names, eleven time seven. The perfecting “Twelve” element came next with the birth of Jesus. The account of Anna has her living a zodiacal eighty-four years, “Twelve” times seven, but carving from that period seven years of marriage. The number eleven is thus implied, while she did not attain the vision of the Christ child until the zodiacal age.

The “eleven” disciples were a team seeking “Perfect(ion)” but had not yet attained it (cf. Phil 3,12-14).

The essential zodiacal character of Christ’s twelvefolded institution of those who would follow him out into the world is strongly supported by John’s identification of Thomas by the zodiacal identification of “the Twin” (Jn 11,16; 20,24 and 21,2). Notably, it is capitalized and used as a “Name,” not necessarily indicating that he was born with a twin sibling. No other evangelist so characterized him, so we might anticipate a particularly profound meaning in this deeply spiritual Gospel, so deep that what is said here can only be the suggestion of an image.

First, “the birth of the Sun,” when according to ancient Zoroastrian texts the rule of the Sun began, occurred when the Sun stood at 19 degrees Aries at the summer solstice, some time between 20,500 and 20,600 B.C., a time known also as the “exaltation of the Sun.” This concept is given in somewhat greater detail in the discussion surrounding Figure 4, “The horoscope of the world,” from Hermetic Astrology I (HA1) (under “Robert Powell” in Vol. 3). It was associated by the ancients with the nativity of the first human being. Powell plausibly suggests (p. 16) that this could mean, among other things, “the moment in history when man’s consciousness awoke to the cosmic world,” and in particular to the importance of the Sun for life. It most likely relates to that time in the Bible described in Gen 9,13 when the rainbow first appeared as the Sun was breaking through the primeval mists (cf. Gen 6,4, the “Nephilim”). Note from the Powell discussion that the annual “enthronement” of the Sun (summer solstice, when it is at the highest point in the sky, i.e., farthest north of the equator) has shifted since that time, due to precession, from the constellation of Aries, the “Lamb,” and is today located at 5 1/2 degrees Gemini, (the “Twins”). At the time of Christ’s birth it was in the sign of Cancer, the “Crab,” which is also the sign of new beginnings (see I-81).

Second, note from I-19 that the birth of the Christ vehicle, or “servant” (Is 42,1-4), Jesus, fell in both the “Astrological Age” and the Cultural Age of the same constellation, Aries, and that he is from ancient time called “the Lamb of God.” (The Astrological Ages are determined by the zodiacal constellation the Sun is in at vernal equinox, not by its summer solstice position.)

Third, consider that inasmuch as the actual date of Christ’s birth was not known to the early Church it adopted the day that from time immemorial had been referred to as the annual birth of the Sun, the date of the winter solstice. Therefore, the day for celebrating the birth of Christ is the same as that of the ancients for celebrating the annual birth of the Sun. Steiner spoke often of this. He gave many Christmas lectures, but perhaps the best source is the collection of eight Christmas lectures in The Festivals and Their Meaning (FM). However, this knowledge is also otherwise generally available. See 3 Brit 283, “Christmas,” and 24 Brit 713, “Mystery Religions; Mystery Religions and Christianity.”

If we then inspect the order of the constellations starting with Aries, Pisces, Aquarius, etc. (following the shift of the annual enthronement of the Sun since its “birth” in Aries; see HA1, p. 15), we see that the eleventh constellation is that of Gemini, the “Twins.” In a sense, then, when one thinks of eleven one can think of this constellation for which Thomas seems perhaps to have been “Name(d)” (by Christ and/or Lazarus/John?).

Another way of looking at it is that Thomas was the missing number “Twelve.” In that sense, he represented the doubting world. When the full complement of “Twelve” is present, then comes the understanding of the “Light,” as in Isaiah’s seminal “seeing, hearing and understanding” which was to be long delayed (Is 6,9-13). It is a sobering thought that, given that the enthronement of the Sun is now in Gemini, as mentioned above, humanity today could be called the “Twin”, in its relationship to the heavenly bodies. We are still doubters as was Thomas, for Gemini is generally considered to represent the element of “doubt.” (See, for instance, Tim Lyons, “Astrology Beyond Ego,” Wheaton, Quest [The Theosophical Publishing House], 1986.) But, as seen above in “Second Coming,” we have already entered the time of the reappearance of Christ in the etheric world, an event that humanity will become more aware of as the Sun’s annual enthronement moves into the sign of Taurus. It will then be in the twelfth and final sign (the Age of Aquarius according to the location of the Sun at the vernal equinox), the sixth Cultural Era, that represented by the church at Philadelphia in St. John’s Apocalypse (see I-19 and I-25). In HA1, Chap. 3, Powell points out that according to ancient tradition the sign of Taurus relates to the human larynx (see “The zodiacal man” in I-21), which in turn relates to the “Word” and to the human being’s future power of reproduction through the larynx.

For a list of the zodiacal signs and their traditional annual dates, as well as the fact that they became fixed long ago, see 12 Brit 926, “zodiac.” See also The Imagery of the Zodiac (IZOD), Chap. 3.

When John has Jesus saying to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe” (Jn 20,29), does this not apply to those of us today (as “Thomases” in the sign of Gemini, the Twin) who have not yet developed our etheric bodies to the point of being able to see Christ in the etheric world during this period of the Second Coming, yet who believe that it is so—that he is there now for us, having already come again, when we are able to see him there? In the deep message of his Gospel and Apocalypse, John has remained until the Second Coming in order to reveal it to us (Jn 21,21-23).

And for those readers able to see the connection, this penultimate thought (Jn 20,29) in the Gospel’s putative original conclusion closely parallels the penultimate thought in Chapter 21, Jn 21,21-23. Blessed are those who are able to “believe” that Lazarus/John who gave us the Gospel of highest spiritual insight has “remained” unidentified throughout the history of Christianity until the time of the Second Coming, and that the Individuality (Hiram Abiff) who brought the divine wisdom into earthly application in building the first temple is the same who appeared as the Beloved Disciple and then again as Christian Rosenkreutz to prepare humanity for the Age of the Consciousness Soul and the building of the higher “Temple,” the purified astral body (Rev 11,1). See “Widow’s Son,” Appendix to “Three Bodies,” and “Pillars on the Journey.” The reality of this is not, after all, so far-fetched as one might tend to think. The Second Coming is only in the etheric world. The Lazarus/John Individuality had perhaps so perfected its etheric body (as well as its astral body) that it “remained” in that world until this day of the “Second Coming” (Jn 21,22) to serve the Earth and the Christ and to be taken up again by Christian Rosenkreutz and Count St. Germain. One who reads about these latter personalities must surely suspect something akin to this. And what better than the etheric body of Lazarus/John could have made the revelations of Christian Rosenkreutz possible—those revelations that were then brought out into the open by Rudolf Steiner after the new age of the Archangel Michael had begun (in 1879) and the Kali Yuga, or five thousand year Dark Age, had ended (in 1899). It is precisely these revelations that are essential for humanity to comprehend the reappearance of Christ in the etheric world.