“You will ask what was that Being Who appears at the beginning of our era as Christ-Jesus? It was the incarnation of the Logos, of the six other Elohim, whose advent had been prepared by Jahve-God who preceeded them. This figure of Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the Christ or the Logos was incarnated, brought into human life, into human history itself, what previously streamed down upon the earth from the sun, what was present only in the sunlight. ‘The Logos became flesh.’ It is upon this fact that the Gospel of St. John places the greatest importance and the writer of this Gospel had to lay great emphasis upon it because it is a fact that after the appearance of a few initiated Christian pupils who understood what occured, there followed others who could not fully understand it. They understood full well that at the foundation of all material things, behind what appears to us in substantial form, there exists a psycho-spiritual world. But what they could not comprehend was that the Logos itself, by being incarnated in an individual human being, became physically visible for the sense-world. This they could not comprehend. Therefore, that teaching which appeared in the early Christian centuries called ‘Gnosis,’ differs from the true Esoteric Christianity on this point. The writer of the Gospel of St. John pointed to this fact in powerful words when he said: ‘No, you should not look upon the Christ as a supersensible, ever invisible being only, one Who is the foundation of all material life, but you should consider this important thing: The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” This is the fine distinction between Esoteric Christianity and the primal Gnosis. The Gnosis, as well as Esoteric Christianity recognizes the Christ, but the former only as a spiritual being and in Jesus of Nazareth it sees at most a human herald, more or less bound to this spiritual being. It holds firmly to an ever invisible Christ. On the contrary, Esoteric Christianity has always held the idea of the Gospel of St. John, which rests upon the foundation of the words: ‘And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us!’ He Who was there in the visible world is an actual incarnation of the six sun Elohim, of the Logos! With the incarnation of the Logos, the earthly mission–or in other words, what the earth was to become through the Event of Palestine– first really began. Previously, all was only preparation.”
Rudolf Steiner The Gospel of St. John, Anthroposophic Press, 1940 pp 54-55 translated by Maud B. Monges
When Steiner mentions the ‘earthly mission,’ he refers to this: ‘The mission of our Earth is the cultivation of the principle of Love to it’s highest degree by those beings who are evolving upon it.’ This is done when individual beings evolve into the realization of their pure individual egos, their relationship–not on a blood level, the level of horizontal heredity– to the Godhead– vertical heredity– the unifying element, the common denominator of all human kind. When each individual ego realizes this Love of his or her own free will, the mission of earth will be fulfilled.
There are some who believe that Christianity participates in the great dualities of western civilization. This is true, perhaps, if you speak of a Christianity created by the Churches that came into being after the crucifixion. But when one takes the time to examine the heart of the Mysteries of the New Testament, without the atrocious filter of organized religion, one can find a path out of the reactionary relativism that has descended upon the world and created what Ken Wilber describes the ‘Flatland,’ the world where nothing is absolute, where nothing is divine, where our thoughts and feelings of divinty are reduced– in the ideology of Francis Crick– to chemical processes– beautiful as they are– occuring within our physiological beings. Maybe, as my partner says, “I think, therefore, I think I am,” is a more accurate way of phrasing the motto of the Cartesian model of humanity.
We are involved in an evolution! May we join together and realize this great Mission of Love!
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