Spiritual Economy, Page 4

This third example of spiritual economy involves the transference of powers from an avatar to an otherwise exalted human being whose higher elements are then not only preserved but are preserved and multiplied so as to be available to subsequent humanity in manifold, if not even unlimited, quantity. What then is an “avatar?” WNWD says, “1. Hinduism a god’s coming down in bodily form to the earth; incarnation of a god; 2. any incarnation or embodiment, as of a quality or concept in a person.” See also 1 Brit 734, “Avatar.” Steiner says that the Christ was the greatest of the avatars. It is interesting to see how Christianity attempts to distinguish the avatar from Christ, yet how the Oriental still sees the Christ as an avatar.⁶ This is shown in 16 Brit 284, “Christianity,” in such a way that it is easy to see that they are one and the same—when Steiner’s explanation is added. In SE, Lect. 3., he identifies what an avatar is in speaking of the role of Shem as the progenitor of the Semitic people:

When a number of human beings are to descend from a particular progenitor, a special provision must be made for this in the spiritual world. In the case of Shem, the provision was that an etheric body was specially woven for him from the spiritual world, which he was to carry. This enabled him to bear in his own etheric body an especially exalted being from the spiritual world, a being who could not otherwise have incarnated on earth because it was incapable of descending into a compact physical body.... This higher being was not Shem, butit incarnated in Shem—the human being—for a special mission. Unlike ordinary human beings, this higher being did not undergo various incarnations, but descended only once into a human body. Such a being is called an avatar.... He descends but once into this world for the sole purpose of carrying out a certain mission.

The part of a human being that is indwelled by such an avatar being acquires a special character in that it is able to multiply. When a grain of seed is sown into the ground, the stalk grows from it, and the grain is multiplied into the ears of grain. In the same way, the etheric body of Shem multiplied into many copies, and these were woven into all his descendants. . . .

But this etheric body of Shem was later used in yet another way. . . . In the later phase of the evolution of the Semitic people, it became necessary that a very exalted being descend to earth in order to communicate with them and provide an impetus to their culture. Such a being was the Melchizedek of Biblical history who, as it were, had to “put on” the preserved [original] etheric body of Shem—the very etheric body that was still inhabited by an avatar being.⁷ Once it was woven into him, Melchizedek was able to transmit to Abraham the impulse necessary for the continued progress of Semitic culture.

In SE, Lect. 2, Steiner gives further insight into the nature of avatars:

They were beings capable of accomplishing their development in higher, more spiritual realms who did not need to descend into corporeal bodies for their further progress. However, in order to intervene in the course of human evolution, such beings can nevertheless descend vicariously into corporeal bodies such as our own. . . .

Such a spiritual being who descends in this way into a human body in order to intervene in evolution as a human being is called an “avatar” in the East; such a being gains nothing from this embodiment for himself and experiences nothing that is of significance for the world. This, then, is the distinction between a leading being that has emanated from human evolution and beings whom we call avatars. The latter reap no benefit for themselves from their physical embodiments, or even from one embodiment to which they subject themselves; they enter a physical body for the blessing and progress of all human beings.

All of this is just one more instance of how anthroposophy can clarify the meaning of scripture. Particularly is this true in the case of Paul’s description of Melchizedek taken from Gen 14: “He is without father or mother or genealogy, and has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest forever” (Heb 7,3). It is the avatar character of both that enabled Paul to quote Ps 110,4 in saying of Christ, “Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 5,6).