Rudolf Steiner’s Fifth Gospel in Story Form~Chapter Eleven
The Temptation occurs between the two calls of the Disciples. After the Judean call Jesus goes about quietly and resumes carpentry. Christ’s soul trial as expressed in the Akashic Record is a series of dramatic images, a confrontation between a lone force of light and the two, dark, would-be masters of the human soul. The Temptation leads us to discuss the intrinsic character of the Fifth Gospel, as it exists in spirit.
One great value of the Akashic Record is its accessibility. Since it is characteristically a record of pictures, it can be readily understood by anyone who can bring their consciousness into it. The Akashic Record also contains a great deal of information, routinely drawn upon by various channeled sources. The record of Christ Jesus’ life in the Akashic Record is evidently then a kind of picture book. Yet exposure to a variety of sources quoting from the Akashic Record strongly suggests this record is located within the astral realm, a realm of matter more refined than physical substance — yet not very far removed. Located as it is in a realm of matter, the Record has its limitations in conveying deep personal experiences, as any picture book would. Lecturing around 1911, Dr. Steiner presented the point of view he gathered from first hand literal reading of the Temptation in the Akashic Records. Emil Bock, writing around 1946 had the benefit of knowing Dr. Steiner personally along with thirty years of subsequent discussion with other theological students of Dr. Steiner about the Temptation. So we have the pleasure of presenting two points of view from which we can profit. Both approaches follow, beginning with Dr. Steiner’s.
Dr. Steiner says, “I believe the following description of the Temptation scene is largely correct. The essentials hold good. While in the Gospels this scene is narrated from different standpoints of character and inspiration, I have made great efforts to investigate this scene and will relate it as it actually appears in the Akasha Chronicle. The Fifth Gospel and the Akasha Chronicle reveal that the Christ Being was led first of all into ‘the loneliness.”
The Christ Being first encounters Lucifer. Who is this Being and what does he embody? Lucifer was one of the original angels of light early in the Earth’s evolution. However he alienated his light from its source, and became like the power of a battery disconnected from its charger, a renegade power alienated from its source. His story approximates the Prodigal Son leaving his home.
The following paragraph is freely adapted from a published talk by Pir Vilayat Kahn. Lucifer carries a powerful “I am,” but it is the glittery, false-fire light of the ego and has its limits. As a being of light, Lucifer radiates light, the light of pride. Imagine what an ego trip a being of starry light can go on! The ego trip is the very epitome of Lucifer. His kind of light is easy to distinguish. It is an enquiring, personal, “taking” light, all intention towards his own agenda. It can often be found amongst any people priding themselves on what they have gained, like the peacock strutting its own beauty. What’s missing? An emphasis on serving; and, surrender to, “Not my will but Thine be done.”
It is Lucifer who models the uttermost pride and arrogance of which the human soul is capable with all his promises of power and influence. His aim is to play upon ego pride, to fan the flames of self-aggrandizement. He draws near to a person when a person prizes themselves too eagerly and is lacking in humility and self-honesty. As Lucifer is the effulgence of divinity in humankind through the tumult of the blood, he is also the author of passion and enthusiasm. While he embodies the desire to know and the ability to understand, these worthy impulses are often garbed in the urge for excitement and self-fulfillment. Lucifer is among other things, the god of thrill-seekers.
Lucifer confronts Christ Jesus and speaks approximately as recorded in the Gospels: `Behold me! The kingdoms into which man’s life has been set, the foundations, which were laid by the primeval Gods and Spirits — these kingdoms have grown old. I will establish a new kingdom. If you will enter my realm, I will give you all the beauty and glory belonging to the old kingdoms. But you must sever thyself from the other Gods and acknowledge me!’
The Christ then experiences all that this being arouses in Him. He feels in Himself a being with the vestiges of unbridled passion. Through an inner language of vision the Bible expresses this by the words: ‘All the realms you behold around you in the physical world and in the conditioned spiritual world, can be yours if you will acknowledge me as Lord of the world!’ Lucifer describes all the glories of his world, the manifested realms of mind and emotions, everything speaking to the human soul if only it has a little pride.
If pride and arrogance have become supreme, and a person enters the spiritual worlds with this pride, he or she can possess the realm of Lucifer through firey pride. This is a possibility when every other fault save pride has been acknowledged and transmuted. Humanity can be tempted; yet, is not designed for this fate. The luciferic portion of the Faust legend tells us this would bring a terrible destiny.
Christ Jesus confronted this possibility. Then two pictures arise in His soul, the first one is his meeting with the despairing man on the way to the Jordan. Standing before Him again is the figure who approached the despairing man in his dream. Jesus recognizes this figure. It is the same figure now standing before Him saying: ‘Acknowledge me as the Lord of the world! It is I you should worship!’ Jesus recalls this as the same being he had seen at the gates of the Essenes. Through this He knew it was Lucifer who was now speaking to Him.
The Christ Being knew how souls must resist if they are not to be led astray. Untouched as He was by this temptation, the Christ Being knew how the Gods are truly served. Thus, he had the strength to repel the onslaught of Lucifer. Lucifer was vanquished.
Then Lucifer made a second attack and called Ahriman to his support. Both set upon Him, each one pulling away on one arm of the Christ. Lucifer sought to goad His pride and desire for excitement, Ahriman to play upon His fear.
Lucifer said to Him: ‘If thou will acknowledge me, then, through the spiritual power I can give you, thou will be able to dispense with the human body. This body subjugates you, compels you to obey the laws of gravity. Show all your fearlessness and strength; show all you are capable of here on Earth! Fly! Cast yourself down from the heights of this cliff without harm!’
Ahriman said: ‘I will keep you from fear as you cast yourself down!’ This temptation was to awaken in Jesus the awareness of His own super-human strength and courage, which can, however, lead directly to wanton recklessness and pointless displays of phenomena.
He knew these two figures. He had seen them at the gates of the Essenes. He knew the second as Ahriman. He relived the experience of meeting the leper on the path to the Jordan.
He had the impression it was Ahriman who had masked himself as Death to the leper. Jesus saw here, not a being of unbridled passion as in Lucifer, but a being of cold shrewdness. The cold Spirit of Cleverness of his day, took on form and came before the eyes of His soul as an actual entity. Jesus saw Ahriman, the dark spirit of soulnessness. He knew the same cold, merely clever spirit, would at some time in the future, lead humanity to the most astonishing discoveries. These would, however, become a growing menace, leading to further distractions from serving and expanding the intimacy living in human hearts. The more he deludes mankind into believing only in external nature will they get bread to eat, so much the more will humanity try to live on stones instead of bread.
Christ Jesus found the strength men and women must manifest for themselves on Earth if they are to stand firm against Lucifer and Ahriman. So this attack of the two He repulsed. He had defeated Lucifer and Ahriman. Then Ahriman spoke: Lucifer, I cannot use you, you only hinder me. Together we hold a balance against each other. You have not enhanced my power but weakened it.’ So Ahriman made Lucifer depart and made his final attack as Ahriman alone. The Gospel of St. Matthew contains an echo of his words: ‘Turn these stones into bread so they become food for man! Demonstrate how humanity need not earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, if you would boast of divine power!’
The Christ Being said: ‘Men do not live by bread alone, but by the spiritual forces coming from the spiritual worlds.’ No one knew this better than He, for He had just descended from the spiritual worlds.
Then Ahriman said: You indeed may be right; yet, this cannot prevent me from keeping a certain hold on you. You know only how the Spirit who descends from the heights acts. You have not yet lived in the world of mankind. In the human world below, men must make stones into bread; they cannot draw their nourishment from the Spirit alone.’
It must be remembered at the Baptism, a Spirit came down to the Earth, who before the Baptism lived in conditions of existence altogether different from those of the Earth. He had no ready answer to the central, motivating dilemma of the physical level. Here and only here in concrete physical existence does the law read, ‘By the sweat of your brow you will make your living.’
Through Ahriman Christ learned something which could only be known on Earth which could not be known by the God standing on Earth for the first time. The Christ Being now realized how it was necessary for life on the physical level to turn mineral substance into bread either by the labor of farming or by other labor, by which money — gold — is earned and which then is exchanged for bread. Ahriman said earthly people had to nourish themselves by means of “gold.” This was the point where Ahriman still retained power. He said: ‘I shall use this power!’ Christ Jesus could not give a full and complete answer to Ahriman’s challenge. He had quelled the attack of Lucifer alone, out of His own strength. He had defeated Lucifer and Ahriman together, for each paralyzed the other; yet, He could not completely nullify Ahriman’s attack alone. So not all the challenges of Lucifer and Ahriman were resolved, the questions of Lucifer, yes, but not the questions of Ahriman. For that something more was necessary.
The fact Ahriman’s challenge could not be completely nullified is connected with the whole working of the Christ Impulse on Earth. The most Dr. Steiner can do is to bring out in rather simple language the meaning of these words. Through self-initiated spiritual effort, it will always be possible to overcome the inner tempting of Lucifer, the desires, cravings, passions, and all that arise as pride, vainglory and arrogance. When a person feels the attack of Lucifer alone, the effort can always be made to quell these attacks.
When Lucifer and Ahriman together attack a person, spiritual victory can be achieved then too. However, when Ahriman is alone, because his activity penetrates right down into the physical-material processes of the planets, he cannot be driven from the field of human affairs entirely. If Christ was truly to help humanity on Earth, He was compelled to permit Ahriman to continue to work. Ahriman’s work, the material element of human life, must persist until the end of Earth-evolution. Until the end of Earth’s evolution, Christ must lend Himself to the struggle with Ahriman.
Christ was compelled to permit Ahriman to exist at His side. Ahriman remained at work through the three years Christ Jesus lived in the body and in this way could be near Christ. Finally he crept into the soul of Judas, inciting his soul to the Betrayal. The questions Judas raises are connected with what remained only partially answered in the Temptation.
We return again here to Emil Bock. He cautions us not to invest ourselves too much in the picture-book personifications of the Temptation, with the overtones of ambition and confrontation native to the astral world. Bock reminds us to gain insight on what happened to Christ by imagining ourselves in His shoes. In some respects no one could have been more a “stranger in a strange land.” The approach to the Temptation we find in Emil Bock’s The Three Years furthers Dr. Steiner’s insights the threefold Temptation did not come from without but rose up from within.
Why did Christ go out into the wilderness of Judea three to four months after the Baptism? Where Jesus goes for forty days, Nature, in term of any living things, is completely withdrawn. On the steep slopes of the wilderness of Judea, bearing as they do the stamp of death, the outer world of nature and people ceases to exercise any influence on man, and he is thrown back entirely on his own inner life. So also is the Temptation of Jesus to be understood. Against this uncluttered background, forces are stirred within His soul which at once reveal themselves as something foreign. Finally they show in clear visionary form the Powers which oppose humankind.
At the Baptism, Christ’s power of creation breaks into the earthly human body. The cosmic streams of life pulsing through Him break into human strength, a majestic soul breaks into a merely human soul. Encountering the Bible story of the Temptation for the first time we might at first sight suppose nothing could have lifted a person so far above all wavering or temptation as the indwelling of the Divine within His soul. Yet it is clear what happened at the Baptism could only have been a beginning. The heavenly content with all its cosmic power was new and overpowering for the earthly vessel into which it was poured. It is precisely the greatness and celestial capacities of the Christ-Ego which invite the storm of temptation.
After the divine Individuality of Christ entered the narrow dwelling of a human body and soul, the cosmic content still surges above and around the earthly vessel. Had the Christ gone about among the people immediately after the Baptism, overwhelming magical activities would have emanated from Him. A bewildering tempest of wonders would have overpowered men without enabling them to receive freedom and the seed of an organic transformation.
He had to feel it as a temptation of the devil to exercise the irresistible compulsion to use His divine power. In His condition He must begin to work among people. However He must even withdraw from them for a time in order not to overpower them. He must begin an inner sacrificial act by which He alone could achieve the balance between the divine content and the human vessel. His will was to be a brother to humankind, becoming one like all others. So, he withdrew into solitude for forty days, not only out of modesty, but in order for His Being to attain the desired balance between divine and human. In the wilderness He can absorb and bring under His direction the Divine possibilities now housed in Jesus of Nazareth. The Temptation occurs not in a moment of weakness, but in a condition of blessing and power. It is not the humanity of Jesus that invites the tempter, but rather the divinity, which has so newly entered into Earth-existence. Before the Baptism, such a temptation would have been impossible. Yet now the heavenly wine foams TOO powerfully over the rim of the earthly vessel.
The decision to withdraw from human contact and seek loneliness in the desert of Judea must have been taken as a result of the first experiences Jesus had after his former Soul was replaced with a Being of transformation and love. After the baptismal transformation, possibilities presented themselves in the soul of Jesus which had never existed before on Earth. What He could accomplish if He used His unlimited potentials without reserve, became the content of the Temptation. Of course He could turn stones to bread, protect Himself from harm in casting Himself from the pinnacle of the temple into the depths, and become Lord of the world. Yet if He did, He would depart from the purpose and surrender to the Will of the Highest God and Greatest Loving which led Him to incarnate in the first place.
In the Temptation He stands at a crossroads. Not for a moment is He in doubt the possibilities presented to Him by the opposing powers would be a wrong use of the divine powers within Him. The rightful use of His unlimited potential could only be in the resignation to hold these powers in reserve so they could be transplanted wholly within humanity. His mission is to bring “fire” into the very veins and fibers of human nature, incarnating it deeply, and as far as possible completely, thereby implanting it in humanity as a seed force to grow and bear fruit as individuals choose it, exercise it, nurture it. Because this meaning and purpose of His own destiny stood clearly before the soul of Christ Jesus, He saw the divine purpose of human existence in the ascending arc of evolution: to bring the Spiritual within earthly matter.
In the earthly elements of body and ungoverned personality Christ encounters the powers which have estranged men and women from their divine origin and brought them under the curse of mortality. As He encountered in His own physical human body the powers of hardening and bondage to the earth, He also feels He could transform the corruptible into the incorruptible. He feels too the streams of life pouring forth from Him could conquer not only the force of gravity but the full power of death as well. When He encounters in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth the flickering deceptive phantom lights and sensual desires which lead humankind into error, He feels with the sunlike power of purpose which was His, He only needed to appear before people in order to rescue and lead them in His own direction. He may even have felt alarmed at the hitherto undreamed of possibilities suddenly placed at His disposal. Had Jesus so wished, He could have appeared spiritually to people before the Resurrection. Through breath-taking phenomena, he could have convinced everyone of His absolute spiritual power. Yet this was no part of His will. All that belongs to magical occultism and fakirism (fah-KEER-ism) was foreign to his purpose. It can have been no part of His purpose to exercise the superior powers of His divinity over humanity.
Christ’s greatness lay in the fact He renounced all the divine glory and super-human greatness belonging to Him and descended into the same depths in which other men must find their way. The classical saying in the Epistle to the Hebrews, Jesus was tempted as other men, does not refer to any weakness attached to His nature, but to the fundamental purpose and intention of the Incarnation. “We have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.” That Christ was faced with the threefold temptation in the wilderness was not because He was weak like other men, but because He had willed to take upon Himself the weakness of human nature, as well as all the rest of human destiny.
During the forty days of withdrawal into loneliness, Jesus was absorbed into a powerful and active meditation. In the Temptation, He underwent a transformation of His own Being without which he would not have been able to work among men and women the way He wished to do. At the end of the Forty Days, the Christ is really able to begin His life and work as a man among men.
When Jesus came out of the loneliness, He feels transported above everything He had experienced from his twelfth year onwards. Springtime feelings arose in his heart again. He feels the Christ Spirit united with everything which was alive in Him. He no longer feels any connection with what had become old and withered in humanity. He kept the silence of contented relief from His recent sufferings. He wandered around Nazareth and still further afield, visiting many places he had been to as Jesus of Nazareth. Quietly, even reticently, feeling free of any obligations, He went about.
Jesus of Nazareth had abandoned everything connecting him with the Earth and with the world of humanity. The Christ Being had just come down to Earth. He was drawn to the memory impressions left behind. The Christ Being surveyed the memories and said to Himself, “This person experienced the fleeing of Lucifer and Ahriman, perceived the failure of the Essenes, and saw how the Essenes drive Lucifer and Ahriman more strongly to those who have no specialized spiritual training and who then have to battle all the more. Ahriman’s words concerning the need on the physical level to turn stones into bread in order to live had made a deep impression on Him.
The Christ felt Himself drawn to the people who most had to struggle with Lucifer and Ahriman, the people Ahriman was bound to have access to, the people who suffered most with his sting and were under his domination. In other words, He was drawn to where the battle was greatest.
And so Christ Jesus spent his time with the “publicans and sinners,” for it was they who were most preoccupied with making a living and “making ends meet”. He was constantly among these people, who through their karma were set upon by all the demons of the time. He went about from one neighborhood to another, spending time among the people and with people wherever he went. Everywhere He went He found people who already knew Him, with whom He had worked before during his travels; people recognized Him.
