Steiner Online Library Spiritual Science for Human Evolution

Deeper Secrets of Human History
in the Light of the Gospel of St. Matthew
GA 117

Appendix II

Note on two Jesus Children

Rudolf Steiner explained the great difficulty of reconciling the Incarnation accounts in St. Matthew and St. Luke, by revealing that they each refer to a separate Jesus-child, born, as the Gospels assert, from different Davidic lines. How these children grew up together, and how their beings were finally united as the being of Jesus of Nazareth, is related by Dr. Steiner in the lecture-courses entitled The Gospel of St. Luke, The Gospel of St. Matthew, From Jesus to Christ, and others. It is a mystery which it is impossible to treat adequately in a note. These present lectures, however, show us the detailed, age-long provision by the spiritual powers, of the physical organism which could be the vehicle of the incarnating Christ. While they treat mostly of the purely physical preparation through the Hebrew race, they also speak of the spiritual inheritance through Zarathustra, and the soul-bestowal of Buddha. It is the harmonising of these three " sheaths " of past inheritance in one being that is explained by the revelation of the fact of these two children, a mystery of which there are only a few uncomprehended traces in the Gospels. It is a mystery of great importance, which can only be apprehended by patient, unprejudiced study.

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Quotes

"You can see from this, my dear friends, what mischief will be set on foot if the truths of Spiritual Science are withheld. For man will be exposed to the forces of evil, and he will only be protected from it by giving himself up to the spiritual life of the good. To withhold the spiritual life of goodness from men is to be no friend to humanity. Whoever does this, be he Freemason or Jesuit, is no friend to humanity. For it means handing men over to the forces of evil. And there may be a purpose in doing so. This purpose may be to confine goodness to a small circle, in order by the help of this goodness to dominate the helpless humanity who are thus led by evil into the follies of life."

—Rudolf Steiner,
Spiritual Science Notes On Goethe's Faust, Vol. II, No. 273-8.

Spiritual Exercises

Calendar of the Soul

In 1912 Rudolf Steiner offered a “calendar of the soul” with weekly verses that express how the changing seasons in both the outer natural world and our inner lives help humanity evolve. Download and read the verses in four translations with commentary by Eloise Krivosheia of the Los Angeles Branch of the Anthroposophical Society.

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2022-2023 Calendar Dates