Rudolf Steiner’s Fifth Gospel in Story Form ~ Chapter Ten
The source material for this chapter comes in large part from Emil Bock, The Three Years, The Life of Christ between Baptism and Ascension (Emil Bock, Licensed Theologian, Berlin. First German edition 1948; English: Floris Books 1955, 4th reprint 1987. ISBN 0 86315–060–8.) Emil’s material is used here to fill in chronology gaps in Dr. Steiner’s narrative.
Emil elaborates on a special character of the Gospels. He says the Gospels are a picture-book of discipleship. The images picture stations of the human spirit along the path of Christianity. Further, if we leave aside theological abstractions and merely moral interpretations, we discover the soul-sphere of the Gospels as a world of its own. A wonderful panorama opens up in which one’s spiritual bearings can be taken, just as on Earth one’s bearings can be taken by mountain peaks. Providence itself directs the steps and stages by which the disciples set out to walk with Christ. The more clearly the course of this archetypal story is seen, the more natural it is our own souls should feel themselves reflected in the figures of the disciples, as well, receive the incentive to undergo spiritual transformations which at times correspond to the experiences of the disciples.
In the calling of the disciples, we can read the picture-writing for what it tells us of the first steps on the path. From the two callings an especial idea can be formed of the beginning of the path of discipleship.
For over a year, the life of Jesus followed its course quietly for the most part, in conscious reserve, both before John’s imprisonment and after his death. Six months elapse between the Baptism of Jesus and the arrest of John. Six months also elapse between the two calls of the disciples. The first of these, the Judean call, is definitely associated in the Gospel of St. John and with the Baptism. The second occurs in Galilee.
The first encounters with His future disciples take place in Judea itself, not just in Jerusalem, where the typical Judean characteristics are moderated. The Judean landscape, where three years later the Cross of Golgotha is to stand, is, with the desert of Judah and the Dead Sea, an inferno compared to Galilee. It is a petrified landscape, almost like that of the Moon, where the Earth is robbed of its vitality, a victim of cosmic mineralization. Something more than old age had lain hold of Judea. In Palestine is concentrated a great cosmic polarity: Judea and Galilee. Deep down at the foot of the wilderness of Judah near where the Jordan enters the Dead Sea, the Sea of Death breathes its poison over a country in which nothing can thrive. The deadly brine of the Dead Sea penetrates even up the Jordan river. At the deepest point of the Earth’s surface, the Dead Sea is framed by magnificently fissured mountains, whose moon-like character is mysteriously enhanced in the short hours of sunrise and sunset when the air assumes unearthly colors.
Nothing brings out more clearly the contrast between the two Palestinian lakes than the fact that no fish can live in the Dead Sea whereas the Lake of Gennsareth in Galilee is blessed with a wealth of fish. Even at the place of John’s baptisms, the Jordan can no longer support fish. Here where the Jordan, already weary with the loss of its vitality, enters the region of death, framed by cosmic pictures of the deepest fall of creation and of mankind’s fall into sin — here John the Baptist raised his voice, and directed his burning prophetic summons like a flame of fire, calling humanity to a change of heart.
In the Gospel of John, the meeting and call of the disciples is described in direct association with the Baptism of Jesus. The Fourth Gospel tells of the call at the very beginning. Jesus has come to John the Baptist, and was baptized in the river Jordan. It was not solely a meeting between Jesus and John, for John is surrounded by a group of disciples. John calls the attention of some of those who feel themselves to be his disciples to Him Who silently and unobtrusively, has joined the group receiving baptism. John is deep in conversation with two of his disciples. Then he sees Jesus passing, and says to the two who are with him, “Behold the Lamb of God!” This may have awakened in them no clear knowledge, but still a strong presentiment constraining them to follow, as in a dream, Him to Whom the Baptist was pointing. Jesus notices the two are following Him. He turns around and looking at them says, “What seek ye?” John’s two disciples ask a counter-question coming perhaps from the dream-depth of their soul, “Where dwellest thou?” Jesus bids them come with Him: “Come and see.”
The Gospel records they remained with Him the whole day. One of the two was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. In a state of inspiration, he must tell his brother what he has discovered. So Simon also comes to Jesus, who renames him Peter, the Rock, acknowledging the elemental forces in his nature. More of the Baptist’s disciples join those who recognize the character of Jesus. The process begins where the followers of Elijah-John, a flock who will soon be without a shepherd, are transferred to Jesus.
The scene of the call of the disciples in Galilee is a picture of deep spiritual fraternity and harmony. To gain as much as possible of its inner pictorial value, one must feel the quality of the scenery. This spot on the shore of the “Lake of Lakes” where the second call took place stands out among all other landscapes because of its sun-filled spiritual beauty.
In other countries there are landscapes of more spectacular splendor, as perhaps in the Alps, or among the rocky islands of the Gulf of Naples, or in the primeval fertility of the South Sea Archipelago. Yet here on the north-west bank of the Lake of Gennesareth is a landscape of unsurpassable enchantment. The name Bethsaida, the town near where Jesus called the two pairs of brothers to follow Him, means “the House of Fish.” Sometimes when the lake is glassy and still, looking down from the hills to the water, one can see at the mouth of the delta a great milky bow spreading far out into the cobalt blue. This is formed by great shoals of fish attracted to the taste and smell peculiar to the water here. Therefore it is an ideal place for the casting of nets. There is not only, in general, the breath of spiritual sunshine, but everyone who comes here feels deeply impressed, as though, returning from a long absence, he remembers his place of origin. The comforting world before birth is especially clearly reflected here by the Lake.
The whole wonder of Galilean sunshine irradiates the second calling of disciples. Only two fishing boats near the shore break the blue surface of the lake. The nearer boat rides a little way from the land; the two fishermen in it are casting their net, and so have to put out into open water. To these two brothers Jesus addresses His call, “Follow Me.” The two men leave their nets, row the boat in, and henceforward accompany Him on His way. Going further, He calls to the men in the other boat, again two brothers who are mending their nets close inshore. They too respond to His call immediately. So, Jesus continues His quiet way accompanied by the two pairs of brothers, Peter and Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John.
In this simplicity, the scene takes on the dimensions of an archetype. Bethsaida, the House of Fish, was the home of many of the Twelve. Phillip too came from here. The call to follow reached Matthew, the customs officer, in the same place. He was stationed here, where the ancient road between Babylon and Egypt runs along the lakeside. No one in the world could have had a more home-like home than these men. The quality of an original, archetypal homeliness is spread out over the place. However the path of the disciples leads from home to homelessness. By following Christ’s call, the disciples were uprooted. They would not have been able to find Christ if they had not been able to leave the cosmic beauty of their home. The renunciation which leads to inner and sometimes outer homelessness belongs to the beginnings of their spiritual path. It is expressly emphasized as well the second pair of brothers left not only their boat and nets, but also their father. Giving up home life involves also detachment from blood-ties.
The call of the disciples at the Lake of Gennesareth gives instruction to the last detail on this essential first step of the spiritual path. In order to follow Christ, the two pairs of brothers have to leave their boats and go ashore. This is a picture of the first step to the spirit: the way from the sea to the land. Falling asleep each night is like putting out from dry land into the open sea. Dry land is the material world of the day-mind, the conscious Self. The sea is like the oceanic land of the soul and spirit. Waking up is like returning to dry land. In the case of the fishermen, external and internal events are synchronized.
Emil Bock says the stepping of the fishermen of Bethsaida from the sea to the land has even more significance. People who grew up on the shore of Galilee, who constantly lived on this mysterious frontier-line between Earth and water, were bound to be different from, for instance, people born and bred in Judea. Travelers in Palestine during the last century, especially the gifted Frenchman, Renan, have recorded meting many people round the Lake of Gennesareth who possessed second sight, who had the old dreamlike clairvoyance. The paradise-world of Bethsaida kept alive the old clairvoyant faculties which most of humanity had lost by the time of Christ. This capacity took these people slightly out of themselves, producing a kind of prophetic experience. Where land and water touch, the soul meets the spiritual world more easily. It is meaningful to realize the first disciples still shared in the ancient heritage of clairvoyance, and had not yet reached the nadir of spiritual consciousness characteristic of the inhabitants of Judea, nor still more the people of today.
The meaning of the picture of the four men leaving the lake and their boats indicates an awakening from the dreamlike clairvoyant condition, the casting off of the nature-given link with the supersensible. Their nets filled with fish are a picture of the dreams and visions given to the soul who sets forth on the sea of dreams. The disciples have to take leave not only of their home, but also of the consciousness of heaven, growing from the elemental forces of their native land. A world of dreams and pictures is exchanged for objective earthly consciousness.
The secret of discipleship in a more modern spirituality shown in the scene, is twofold: to stand firmly with both feet on the ground, yet to strive to find the spiritual in the earthly and to press out into the wide open sea of spiritual consciousness.
The Galilean scene on the lakeside, which at first seemed to be only an imaginative picture of inward steps and resolutions, proves to have biographical accuracy. It is not a beginning taking place here. Many and great things have preceded it. It is a wonderfully fresh new start for the fishermen of Galilee. A first installment of an awakening to go forward into the world must have come to the disciples on the lakeside, as Jesus called them to follow Him. Their experiences with John the Baptist of the incarnating God had at first been like a dream. Now they began to wake up. Scales fell from their eyes as Jesus spoke to them. They began to tread the path of discipleship in reality and to grasp the mystery of the glory of light, previously seen as in a dream. When Jesus said to them, “I will make you fishers of men,” the vision of apostleship began to shine.
St. John implies already between the two calls, the disciples shared at times in the life of Christ. After their eyes had first been opened as a result of the Baptism, a considerable time of separation followed. Jesus spent forty days in the wilderness and did not return to John the Baptist. He pursued His quiet wanderings in Galilee, perhaps even continuing His former handicraft.
In the meantime, John the Baptist’s disciples who had absorbed some of the greatness of this new Being, now returned to Galilee. In this way Jesus and the disciples met again. They were invited together as guests to the marriage in Cana. The little town of Cana in Galilee was, according to the last chapter of St. John, where Nathaniel lived, the last one to be called at the first call. Perhaps it was Nathaniel who brought about the meeting between Jesus and the disciples at the marriage in Cana. The Gospel links the disciples’ experience in Cana with the first impressions imparted to them in the Baptist’s circle: “He manifested forth His glory” (John 2:11). It was still a time of prelude because as Jesus said to His mother “Mine hour (of open manifestation) is not yet come.”
