Christ and the Trinity

Steiner has described many of the most important secrets around the Trinity in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Gospel of Mark:

It must be spoken of in this way if we are to describe it in the sense of the Mark Gospel, for most remarkable things are described in it, and especially what is presented as having taken place within the soul of Christ Jesus Himself. ~Steiner

We all have an idea about who Jesus was, but what was his significant role in Earth development? The Holy Spirit is maybe the least understood mystery of all, but it is a mystery worth solving.

Steiner wrote the story around the two Jesus children, but what is the deeper reason behind it? Steiner also wrote that the etheric body of Zarathustra became part of Moses, his astral body became part of Hermes, and his 'I' became part of Jesus, but I think most have problems using the knowledge, what did Steiner want to tell with the information? Who was Zarathustra?

In the Beginning

Steiner describes in the Temple Legend this creation story, where Eve is Sophia, the true Creator, Adam the Father, Cain the Son of God and Abel the Son of Man.

One of the Elohim united himself with Eve and out of this union of a divine creative spirit with Eve, Cain was born.

Then another of the Elohim, Jehovah or Adonai, created Adam, who is to be regarded as the primal man of the third Root Race.

This Adam then united himself with Eve, and from this union Abel was born.

Thus at the outset of human evolution there are two starting points: Cain, the direct descendant of one of the Elohim with Eve, and Abel, who, with the help of a divinely created human being, Adam, is the true representative of Jehovah. The Temple Legend, Lecture 7

Adam is the Father. Adam is the physical earth of which his body consists. Cain is the Son of God, who are one of the Elohim. Cain is the etheric world, the life and feelings of man. He gave life to Adam. Abel is the Son of Man, the Son of Adam. Abel is the astral world, the lower thinking. He is the true representative of Jehovah, The Third Logos.

The following text also points to the Jesus being as the Holy Spirit, awaiting the time to incarnate. The Three Logoi:

1. The spirit that prevailed in the common origin of both souls and bodies is the father spirit; that is the “Father”.
2. The spirit that prevailed down below in the physical realm, whilst the spiritual went its separate ways up above, is the son spirit; that is the “Son”.
3. And the spirit that prevailed up above in the soul sphere until it was able to descend into the physical realm, that is the “Holy Spirit”.

From the notes of the lecture “The promised spirit of truth”, Cologne, 8 March 1907

The First Logos is Adam, the Father. The Second Logos who entered the physical world was Cain. And the Third Logos who stayed back in the spiritual world was Abel.

I mentioned already last time that a great number of occult secrets lie hidden in the story of Cain and Abel. I wish to point out certain things today, but right at the beginning I would stress that the relationship between Cain and Abel — with regard to its deeper aspect, of course — is an allegory for very profound mysteries which we will only be able to reveal in part on the basis of the conceptions we hold. ~Steiner

This is a curious but interesting puzzle piece worth remembering with further studies:

Cain was a twin, for with him was born a girl; and Abel was one of three, for with him came two girls. --Gen. Rabba 22.

Jesus, the Third Logos

The Jesus being is known as Abel and as Krishna, and we knew him as the angelic being who Michael/Christ uses in the three pre-earthly deeds.

The same Jesus, whom the Gospel of Luke relates, Is the incarnation of this same soul which has never before lived in a human body but is nevertheless a human soul because it was a human soul during the ancient Lemurian period in which our actual evolution began.

It is the same soul that has revealed itself as Krishna. Thus we have what is the Krishna impulse, the impulse to human self-consciousness, embodied in the body of Luke-Jesus-Boy. ~Steiner

The soul of Zarathustra, the then Second Logos, entered the body of Jesus at the age of twelve.

Therefore, the soul who is in the other Jesus-boy, and who, as most of our dear friends know, is the Zarathustra, is a soul that has passed from incarnation to incarnation, and which is reached by special work within many incarnations.

Therefore, this Zarathustra is going into the body of the Luke-Jesus-boy, and from this point onwards-as you find it represented in my book, The Spiritual Leadership of Man and Humanity is connected with this body of Luke Jesus. ~Steiner

Zarathus had the spiritual leadership of humanity as functioning Second Logos until Golgotha.

We touch a wonderful secret. Here we see, As in a human body, into the body of the Luke-Jesus-boy, the human soul is as it has been before man has descended into the earthly incarnation series.

Then we understand that this soul in the human body could only rule until the twelfth year of this body, that then another soul, which has undergone all human transformations, like the Zarathustra, must take possession of this particular body.

The miraculous is realized that what is the innermost of man is to see his own self, which we regard as Krishna, as impulses, flashing in the Krishna impulse, the Jesus, which is portrayed in Luke's Gospel. ~Steiner

We will inscribe firmly in our souls this four-fold nature of Christ Jesus, saying to ourselves: Every person who stands before us on the physical plane consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and Ego; and this Ego is such that it always works into the astral body up to the hour of death.

The Christ-Jesus-Being, however, stands before us as One who had physical body, etheric body and astral body, but no human Ego, so that during the three years up to his death he was not subject to the influences that normally work upon human beings. The only influence came from the Christ-Being. ~Steiner

The nearer Jesus, the Son of Man, came to his death, the more Christ left him, there were only the three lowest bodies back.

So this aura gradually withdrew from the man Jesus of Nazareth; Christ became ever more estranged from the Son of Man, Jesus of Nazareth. Toward the end of His life Jesus of Nazareth was more and more alone, and the Christ became ever more loosely connected with Him. ~Steiner

The Jesus being went into the death world without a soul, it has it's I in the astral body. This is what is meant with the word Son of Man, he is the archetype of the next humanity who will inhabit the New Jupiter, the followers of humankind.

No Gospel other than that of St. Mark tells how only the Son of Man remained, and that the cosmic element only hovered around Him. ~Steiner

The spirit can't die, can't enter the death world, the astralworld, so had to separate from jesu astral body before Jesu death.

He stands alone. But what has become of the youthful, cosmic element?

Think of the loneliness of this man, permeated as He was by the cosmic Christ, who now confronts the posse like a murderer. And those who should have understood Him flee! “And they all forsook Him and fled,” it says in the 50th verse.

Then in verses 51 and 52:

And there was a youth among his followers, who wore a fine linen garment over his bare body, and they seized him. But he let go of the linen garment and fled naked.

Who is this youth? Who was it who escaped here? Who is it who appears here, next to Christ Jesus, nearly unclothed, and then slips away unclothed?

This is the youthful cosmic impulse, it is the Christ who slips away, who now has only a loose connection with the Son of Man. ~Steiner

Turning inside out

God makes a covenant with humankind, that he would write the law into mans inner, into their hearts, we will be one and God will be their conscience.

Before Christ the gods walked around in etheric form between the animal-men and our soul howered above the body.

Steiner mentions that at the time of Jesu death, the whole universe turned the inside out, that the old universe inherited from the moon period now became the inside and the new universe the outside, the spiritual died in the old universe and resurrected in the new universe, became inner reality where they before had been outer reality.

As the darkness came over the world and the veil at the temple split, the outer physical reality we inherited from the old Moon becomes inner and the inner reality becomes outer.

All of the purified spiritual microcosmos above the physical plane, enters the dark death-world of the physical world at the death of Jesus. The Father of Jesus leaves Jesus before his death, as the spirit can't die, can't connect to the dark astral world.

But Jesus enters the death-world, and with him comes the light into the physical, etheric world and the astral world, the gods moved into our inner world.

Then the infolding of the universe happens, what before was the outside of the physical world, with the bodies of man, now inverts and become the inside, and the inner of man, now including Jesus, becomes the outside.

The Son, the Second Logos

Zarathustra was Adam Kadmon, meaning that his spiritual bodies represented the Three Logoi. His etheric body that worked in Moses was the Second Logos, the Son. His Astral Body that worked in Hermes was the Third Logos. His Soul represented the First Logos.

Here he leaves giving over to the Second Logos, the Father gives over to the Son:

Jesus of Nazareth is a very highly developed individuality. In the thirtieth year of his life he gives up his own life to the descending Christ, the descending Logos. All this the Magi foresaw. The great sacrifice made by Jesus of Nazareth is that he gave up his ‘ I ’ to make way for the Second Logos. ~Steiner

Here is Christ described, Buddhi is the Second Logos and she is Sophia, wisdom. Manas is the First Logos, Elijah, the Father.

Jesus had no human soul, in its stead was the Son, Christ, that was the unity of the twelve souls of the apostles.

To a certain extent there was a deep and inner connection between the soul of the Christ and the souls of the Twelve.

Everything that took place within the soul of Christ was made up of processes of significance for that time, rich and manifold processes.

But all that took place in the soul of Christ took place again in a kind of reflected image, a reflection in the souls of the disciples, but divided into twelve parts.

In this way each of the Twelve experienced, as in a reflected image, a part of what happened in the soul of Christ Jesus; but each of the Twelve experienced it somewhat differently.

What took place within the soul of Christ Jesus was like a harmony, a great symphony, reflected in the souls of each of the Twelve, in much the same way as twelve instruments can give forth a harmony. [The twelve starsigns of the Zodiac.] ~Steiner

What Christ Jesus had to go through should be for all of mankind, so the twelve archetypes should each of them go through the Christ experience in the form following their star sign.

The Father, the First Logos

John the Baptist represented the old Adam Kadmon, just like Lazarus and Krishna had, and the beheading symbolized that the old Adam Kadmon lost his spirit. Christ Jesus became the new Adam Kadmon, the Second Adam. The spirit of the Baptist is Elijah, and he is the First Logos.

And we must include in such a study most particularly what was said yesterday, that the spirit of Elijah, after it had been freed from the physical body of John the Baptist, was actually active as a kind of group soul of the disciples. ~Steiner

Elijah worked as a group soul for the twelve, even as a higher I for Lazarus/John after the initiation.

But because Elijah's spirit as a group soul came near to the Twelve and permeated them like a common aura, they could, or at least it was possible for them to become in a higher sense clairvoyant. ~Steiner