From PLANETARY SPHERES AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON MAN’S LIFE ON EARTH AND IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS by Rudolf Steiner
I. The Threefold Sun and the Risen Christ
They were deeply initiated, the earliest Christian initiates; and they knew that the Christ, Whom we think of today as the Being Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha at the beginning of our era, — they knew that the Christ, Who came hither from the Sun, had also descended to the Sun from yet more distant heights. It was in the Sun that Zarathustra beheld Him. Then His power went over into the rays of the Sun. The initiates of Egypt beheld Him in the rays of the Sun. And then His power lived in the environment of the Earth. It was there that the initiates of Greece beheld Him. And now in this present time — so said the earliest Christian initiates — it is given to man to behold Christ as One Who walked on Earth in an earthly body, and Who is seen by us in His true form when we behold Him as the Risen One — the Christ Who is in the Earth, and has seen the Mystery of the Earth and can now bring it about that this Mystery shall gradually flow into the evolution of mankind.
There was a wonderful warmth and glow about the whole way in which this esoteric teaching was communicated, in scattered and lonely schools of initiation, during the first centuries after Christ, — coming over from the East and spreading continually westward by secret channels. Yes, make no doubt of it, there was verily such an esoteric teaching of Christianity. The Early Church Fathers knew more than is known today. But they saw also at the same time the attack that was threatening from the side of Rome. Modern historians have very little idea of the magnitude of that collision between the early Christian impulse and the anti-spiritual world of Rome. What the Roman world did was to throw a cloak of externality over the deepest Christian Mysteries.
The men of old had a living relationship to the powers of the Universe, such as is scarcely possible for us to imagine today with our ordinary consciousness. Men who lived three, four, five thousand years before Christ knew quite well that when they ate this or that substance, it went on working in their body and brought the powers of the Cosmos to manifestation within them. Look, for example, at the kind of instruction Zarathustra gave to his pupils. He used to teach them in the following manner. “You eat the fruits of the field. These fruits have been shone upon by the Sun, and in the Sun lives the high and lofty Spirit Being. The power of the high Spirit Being, coming from the distant Cosmos, enters with the Rays of the Sun into the fruits of the field. You eat the fruits of the field; what the substance brings forth in you fills you with the spiritual forces of the Sun, when you enjoy the fruits of the field, the Sun ‘rises’ in you, I will tell you what you should do at Solemn festival times. Take something that has been prepared from the fruits of the field. Meditate upon it. Remember that the Sun is within it. Meditate upon it until the piece of bread becomes radiant to you. Then eat it, and be conscious of how the Spirit of the Sun has come from the vast Universe, has entered into you and become alive within you.”
Happy Sunday.
Just stumbled across this one …
Recent Comments