Peter, James and John, Page 2

The first reported is the raising of Jairus’ daughter. The account is reflected in all synoptics. Matthew alone fails to identify these three with it (Mt 9,18-26). One cannot comprehend its higher meaning without hearing what Steiner said. The following passage appears in Lect. 3 of Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha (BSU), pp. 57-59:

I should like to draw your attention today to another important question. The Gospels often speak of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God or the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. In what sense do they speak of mysteries? It is somewhat difficult to grasp this idea. Those who have made a careful study of the Gospels from the occult standpoint are increasingly of the opinion that every sentence in the Gospels is immutable, every detail is of the greatest moment. All criticism is reduced to silence as one penetrates ever more deeply into the Gospels from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Now before speaking of the mystery of the Kingdom of Heaven I must draw your attention to something that is highly characteristic.

In my earlier lectures on the Gospels I referred to that important passage which deals with the healing, or, one might call it, the raising of the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus. Since we can speak openly here, I am able to refer to the deeper medical knowledge of an occult nature which is disclosed to those who study this miracle of healing from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Christ went into the ruler’s house and took Jairus’ daughter who was thought to be dead by the hand in order to heal her (Matt. IX, 22-25; Mark V, 22; Luke VIII, 41). Now I must remind you that we can never arrive at an understanding of such matters if we do not relate the passage in question to the earlier and later passages. People are only too ready to detach certain passages from their context and study them in isolation, whereas they are interdependent. You will recall that as Jesus was summoned to the daughter of Jairus, a woman who was diseased with an issue of blood for twelve years came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment and was healed. Christ felt that “virtue” had gone out of Him. He turned round and said: “Daughter, thy faith has made thee whole.” We can understand these words only if we grasp in the right way the idea of faith referred to above: “Thy faith (or trust) hath made thee whole.” Now this passage in the Gospels has deep implications. The woman had suffered from an issue of blood for twelve years. Jairus’ daughter was twelve years old. She was sexually retarded and was unable to develop the maturity of the woman who had suffered from hemorrhage for twelve years. When Christ healed the woman He felt that “virtue” or power had issued from Him. When He entered the ruler’s house He took the girl by the hand and transferred this power to her and so enabled her to reach sexual maturity. Without this power she must have wasted away. And thus she was restored to life. This shows that the real living Being of Christ was not confined to His person, but was reflected in His whole environment, that Christ was able to transfer powers from one person to another by virtue of His selfless regard for others. He was able to surrender the self in active service for others and this is reflected in the power that He felt arise in Him when the woman who had great faith touched the hem of His garment.

This mystery is related to the observation He frequently made to His disciples: “Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God; but unto them that are without all these things are done in parables.” (Mark IV, 11.) Let us assume that the mystery of which I have just spoken—I do not mean simply the theoretic description I have given of it, but the power that was necessary before this transference could be effected—had been imparted to the Scribes and Pharisees. What would have happened if they had been able to transfer powers from one person to another? They would not always have transferred them wisely. It is evident from the Gospels that Christ did not expect the Pharisees, still less the Sadducees, to act responsibly. When transferring this force from one person to another they would have abused it, for such was their mentality, and would have caused untold harm. This mystery therefore had to remain a secret of the Initiates.

Later in the same lecture (at pp. 66-68) he relates this human sexual development to the whole gamut of human evolution, pointing out that human beings are neither physically nor spiritually the same today as they have been in the past nor as they shall be in the future. He speaks again of the time in the latter part of our post-Atlantean Epoch (in the sixth millennium) when women “will become sterile and . . . an entirely different reproductive process will exist” (cf. Lk 23,29 and Mt 24,19; Mk 13,17; Lk 21,23).

Steiner again speaks of this healing but from a slightly different perspective in The Gospel of St. Mark (GSMk), Lect. 3, p. 57, indicating that at this time when the Kingdom of Heaven was near “one ego must hence-forth be in direct relationship with another ego.”

One must also suspect that Christ perceived a karmic connection between the woman and the girl, though Steiner does not explicitly say so in these passages. In Lect. 4 of Manifestations of Karma (MK), he speaks of the curability and incurability of disease, saying,

From this we see how karma works in illness and how it works to overcome illness. It will now no longer seem incomprehensible that in karma there also lies the curability or incurability of a disease. If we clearly understand that the aim—the karmic aim of illness is the progress and the improvement of man, we must presume that if a man in accordance with the wisdom which he brings with him into this existence from the kamaloca period contracts a disease, he then develops the healing forces which involve a strengthening of his inner forces and the possibility of rising higher.

Luke concludes his version of this story with Jesus charging the parents (and presumably also the disciples) “to tell no one what had happened” (Lk 8,56), a frequent admonition when something too deep for common understanding has taken place.

The next event, as reported, is the Transfiguration. We have already seen, in “Karma and Reincarnation” above, how this highly spiritual occurrence revealed the reality of karma and repeated Earth lives to Peter, James and John, and how they were told not to say anything about this esoteric knowledge to others during that Cultural Era of the Intellectual Soul, i.e., before the “Second Coming.” Clearly the Transfiguration involved a situation of enhanced consciousness on the part of the disciples. We can expect this of any experience that occurs on a “Mountain,” as all the accounts report, but especially when it is said to be on a “High Mountain” as Matthew and Mark both say, Jesus having “led them up.” However, later in this essay we will look at how subtly the Gospels show us the transition even then taking place in regard to the John being.

In the third and final scene, we find Peter, James and John with Jesus in Gethsemane. To appreciate this threefold sequence of events and how it reveals the demands for growing consciousness on the part of these closest disciples, we must come to a new understanding of what was taking place. Until it is seen that the “Three Years” of Christ’s Incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth was an enactment upon the world arena of the stages of initiation into the ancient “Mysteries,” leading humanity through their purest and profoundest depths, we will misapprehend the event. That he was to die upon the Cross was known to Jesus well before Gethsemane. Instead of the “temple sleep” of the Mysteries, the Christ must undergo actual earthly “Death,” retaining full Consciousness throughout the event. He walked forthrightly into the face of his antagonists knowing this. How then can theology assume, as it has, that the “cup” that he prayed might “pass from” him was the “Crucifixion” itself (Mt 26,39; Mk 14,36; Lk 22,42)? Hear what Steiner says in GSMk, Lect. 9, pp. 168-169:

Let us place ourselves with all humility—as we must—within the soul of Christ Jesus, who to the end tries to maintain the woven bond linking Him with the souls of the disciples. Let us place ourselves as far as we may within the soul of Christ Jesus during the events that followed. This soul might well put to itself the world-historical question, “Is it possible for me to cause the souls of at least the most select of the disciples to rise to the height of experiencing with me everything that is to happen until the Mystery of Golgotha?” The soul of Christ itself is faced with this question at the crucial moment when Peter, James and John are led out to the Mount of Olives, and Christ Jesus wants to find out from within Himself whether He will be able to keep those whom He had chosen. On the way He becomes anguished. Yes, my friends, does anyone believe, can anyone believe that Christ became anguished in face of death, of the Mystery of Golgotha, and that He sweated blood because of the approaching event of Golgotha? Anyone who could believe that would show he had little understanding for the Mystery of Golgotha; it may be in accord with theology, but it shows no insight. Why does the Christ become distressed? He does not tremble before the cross. That goes without saying. He is distressed above all in face of this question, “Will those whom I have with me here stand the test of this moment when it will be decided whether they want to accompany me in their souls, whether they want to experience everything with me until the cross?” It had to be decided if their consciousness could remain sufficiently awake so that they could experience everything with Him until the cross. This was the “cup” that was coming near to Him. So He leaves them alone to see if they can stay “awake,” that is in a state of consciousness in which they can experience with Him what He is to experience. Then He goes aside and prays, “Father, let this cup pass from me, but let it be done according to your will, not mine.” In other words, “Let it not be my experience to stand quite alone as the Son of Man, but may the others be permitted to go with me.”

He comes back, and they are asleep; they could not maintain their state of wakeful consciousness. Again He makes the attempt, and again they could not maintain it. So it becomes clear to Him that He is to stand alone, and that they will not participate in the path to the cross. The cup had not passed away from Him. He was destined to accomplish the deed in loneliness, a loneliness that was also of the soul. Certainly the world had the Mystery of Golgotha, but at the time it happened it had as yet no understanding of this event; and the most select and chosen disciples could not stay awake to that point.

Something of a sequel to this is given in The Fifth Gospel (FG), Lect. 2, where Steiner tells of how at Pentecost (Acts 2,1-12) there was a sort of awakening from the state of spiritual “Sleep” which had engulfed the disciples from the time of the Passion until then.

Let us look then at these three disciples in the light of the demand for spiritual consciousness.