Deeper Secrets in Human History In the Light of the Gospel of St. Matthew (CW 117)

3 lectures, Berlin, November 1-23, 1909 (CW 119)

Steiner examines the four aspects of Christ in the four Gospels, with a special emphasis on the Gospel of Matthew. 

Lecture I November 02, 1909: Christ-Jesus: the Being of Light and Love. The Gospel of St. John: transcendental Ideas. The Gospel of St. Luke: self-offering sacrifice. The Gospel of St. Mark: the spirit-power of the earthly sun-hidden forces of nature and of spirit. The Gospel of St. Matthew: the. Christ as the harmonized picture of Man: secrets of human history

Lecture II November 09, 1909: The faculty of reasoned thought, recognizing Divinity without clairvoyance, as an external revelation, is developed in the ancient Hebrew people. To this end, the particular bodily constitution of Abraham must be transmitted by way of heredity. The combining of the mathematical world-picture with inner Imagination is achieved through Moses in Egypt. The Law is given in Arabia. In the Babylonian captivity, contact is made with oriental wisdom. Recapitulation of the history of the ancient Hebrew people in the coming of Jesus of Bethlehem. The kingdom of Man or the kingdom of Heaven.

Lecture III November 23, 1909: The different streams of spiritual life in antiquity converge in Jesus. Ancient clairvoyance and the significance of blood-relationship fade away before the new happening: the full function of the Ego, the kingdom of Heaven. Preparation for this among the Nazarenes. The Baptism of John. The Children of the Serpent and the image of the Lamb. John the Baptist as the bringer-in of the new era, in which the spiritual world shines into the soul of man through the phenomena and manifestations of the outer world.

This volume is a translation of three lectures from Die tieferen Geheimnisse des Menschhietswerdens im Lichte der Evangelien (GA 119).