R UDOLF STEINER

AND THE F IFTH G OSPEL

Insights into a New Understanding

of the Christ Mystery

P ETER S ELG

2010

S TEINER B OOKS
The knowledge in the souls of Christs apostles gradually
condensed into the four Gospels. In what he called the
Fifth Gospel, however, Rudolf Steiner pointed to what
throbbed in the apostles hearts but had not yet been
recorded in words.

The Fifth Gospel is the apostles true testimony, not in the

sense of a written record but in the sense of consciousness
imbued with the Holy Spirit.

Andrei Bely1
 Contents

Preface 1

1. I owed it to the Fifth Gospel, which I hold sacred 5

Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures on the Fifth Gospel

2. The facts of the life Christ Jesus 37

From the Contents of the Fifth Gospel

3. The evils hold sway 107

The Lectures Are Discontinued

Notes 119

Literature Cited 163

About the Ita Wegman Institute 167
 1.
I owed it to the Fifth Gospel, which I hold sacred.

Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures

on the Fifth Gospel

When we experience such impressions, their effect on

our souls is so shattering that we do not immediately feel
the need to dwell on them too much. We also soon sense
that they cannot be fathomed with human thoughts; we
find our thinking inadequate for approaching them.
These impressions, however, not only entrench them-
selves in our souls but become an intrinsic part of our
soul-life. Our connection to the part of the soul that has
accumulated such experiences is then felt as a connec-
tion to the experiences themselves, which we continue
to carry with us through life (70f.).*

On October 1, 1913, Rudolf Steiner began his lecture cycle

on the Fifth Gospel in Kristiania, after having announced
the series to members of the Anthroposophical Society a
few months earlier, in August 1913:

*The number in the parentheses after quotations indicates the page number in the
German edition of Aus der Akasha-Forschung. Das Fnfte Evangelium (GA 148).
The English translation is available through SteinerBooks as The Fifth Gospel: From
the Akashic Record. Quotations from other GA works are indicated by (000, 000;
GA number, page number), or a superscript and then identified in the Notes with the
English edition title when available.
6 Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel

From the Akashic Record: The Fifth Gospel. The title

was announced in Munich. We were all uncertain what it
meant, but at least a majority of those present assumed that
the cycle would tackle contemporary Gospel criticisma
very interesting subject in the traditional academic sense,
but not the same as Threshold of the Spiritual World
[lecture cycle in Munich, August 2431, 1913].6 The
Threshold was worth a trip to Munich, or even much fur-
ther, but dragging ourselves all the way to Norway for a
critique, especially in the fall, when we all had our hands
full with the beginning of a new season, was a different
matter. There were only a few signatures on the sign-up
sheet. (Andrei Bely)7

Ultimately, however, Russian author Andrei Bely and his

spouse Assya Turgenieff did decide to follow Rudolf Steiner
to Norway. People were saying that he had chosen Kristiania
so that his words could be as fully spirit-imbued as possible.
Supposedly the atmosphere in Norway was especially pure,
whereas a denser aura overshadowed Germany.8 Rudolf
Steiners choice of the Scandinavian city for his first exposition
of this unusual subject was indeed very deliberate. He had lec-
tured there almost yearly since 1908, often on Christological
subjects.9 In the summer of 1910, in the concluding lecture
of a major lecture cycle in Kristiania, he mentioned that this
Nordic region offered the best conditions for understanding
present and future revelations of the Christ (95). Bely esti-
mated that in the end, between two and three hundred people
(the Norwegian friends of anthroposophy plus a few foreigners
who had made the trip specifically for that purpose) were in
the audience as Rudolf Steiner began the cycle on the Fifth
Gospel on October 1, 1913here with you, specifically, as
Steiner himself put it (37).
How the fjord sparkles between lectures! How the stars
twinkle after the lecture! Bely noted.10
 Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures on the Fifth Gospel 7

Three and a half years earlier, Rudolf Steiner already used the
term Fifth Gospel in a lecture (unfortunately inadequately
stenographed) given shortly before Whitsun in Palermo, Italy.
There, on his way back from Rome and Monte Cassino, the
site of the first monastery founded by Benedict of Nursia and
the childhood home of Thomas Aquinas, Rudolf Steiner spoke
on the subject of the impending appearance of the Christ in
the etheric, i.e., the growing perceptibility of the Christ-
Being in his etheric body. Steiner had first mentioned this event
four months before, in early 1910, in Scandinavia.11 Among
other subjects he broached in Palermo, Steiner spoke of the
Rosicrucian movement as a Christ movement.12 He stated
that the Rosicrucian community had been preparing to perceive
the Christ in the etheric for many centuries, and in this connec-
tion he said:

In addition to the four Gospels, Rosicrucian teachings

included a fifth, a spiritual gospel that made it possible to
understand the other four. In the twentieth century, this
gospel will be given to a portion of the human race just as
the four others were given in connection with the Christs
first appearance. Rosicrucian adherents with the necessary
clarity of consciousness will understand the significance of
this gospel for humankind.13

On October 11, 1911, in the major lecture cycle From Jesus

to Christ (held in Karlsruhe two years before the Kristiania
course on the Fifth Gospel), Rudolf Steiner mentioned that in
addition to the four Gospel texts, other means of perceiving the
Christian mysteries had long existed. In the future, according
to Steiner, the appearance of the Christ in the etheric would
make possible direct perception of the importance and the
essence of the Christ Jesus.14
Even before that event, however, two approaches to the
Christ-Mystery were already possible:
8 Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel

One source consists of the Gospels and everything that

flowed from them and traditions based on them. The other
source of knowledge exists because there were always clair-
voyant individuals who could see into the higher worlds
and bring back their own perceptions of the realities of the
Christ-Event, as if from an everlasting Gospel, and share
them with others.15

In the early years of the twentieth century, Rudolf Steiner began

to illuminate events in Palestine at the beginning of the Christian
Era from the perspective of supersensible research into the spiri-
tual scriptas he called itof the Akashic Record. In particular,
he presented details about the mystery of the Christ-Being and
his sacrificial devotion and connection to earthly destiny. Steiner
first broached this subject in Christianity as Mystical Fact.16 Over
the next decade, this book was followed by major lecture cycles
on the individual Gospels.17 Rudolf Steiner repeatedly reinter-
preted passages by the four evangelists or even reproduced the
original spiritual form of these texts on the basis of the spiritual
script. In October 1911 in Karlsruhe, he explained:

To discover how traditional versions must be read, we

must compare them to their original forms. Any purely
text-based tradition is bound to go astray and fall into
error. In future, it will not be enough to simply explain
the Gospels; they will need to be reproduced in their true,
original forms, which will then prove the truth of what
the texts present, as has already been demonstrated with
regard to many passages.18

In Karlsruhe, Rudolf Steiner did not elaborate on the term

Fifth Gospel, coined in Palermo, and so the question remains
open whether it is identical to the everlasting gospel accessible
to spiritual perception during supersensible experiences. Ten
days before the beginning of the advertised course in Kristiania,
 Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures on the Fifth Gospel 9

however, Rudolf Steiner again mentioned the Fifth Gospel, totally

unexpectedly and with great intensity and different emphasis, in
his address at the laying of the foundation stone of the Dornach
Johannesbau as a new mystery center for a modern, independent
School of Spiritual Science. In this address, referring explicitly
to the spiritual situation at the beginning of the Christian Era,
Rudolf Steiner asserted the urgent need for a new spiritual sci-
ence, saying that humanitys vague longing and hoping for the
spirit was perceptible as a cry waiting for an answer.19 This
answer, he said, can be provided wherever spiritual science can
prevail with its gospel that proclaims the spirit.20 In his half-
hour address at the laying of the foundation stone, Steiner gave
an extremely condensed outline of the spiritual conflict of our
time, highlighting the historical movement of Christianity from
East to West, the centuries-long westward migration of its dis-
semination, and theyearningly anticipatedanswer, that is,
the essential future task of western Christ-Gnosis.21 He then said:

From the east came the light and the word of proclama-
tion. From the east, it moved westward, proclaimed in
four ways by the four Gospels, waiting to be reflected
with insight and understanding in the mirror of the west.
Our hearts and souls are deeply affected when we hear
the words of the Sermon on the Mount, spoken at a time
when the human personality had matured, the old spirit
light had faded, and the new spirit light was appearing.
Once it appeared, however, this new spirit light moved
westward for centuries as humanitys evolution continued,
waiting for understanding of the words that once sounded
in human hearts at the Sermon on the Mount. The eternal
prayer spoken to proclaim the Cosmic Word as the
Mystery of Golgotha took place resounds from the depths
of our cosmic evolution. From the depths of the human
soul it resounds, proclaiming the mystery of existence to
the microcosm. In the Our Father, the cosmic word was
10 Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel

meant to resound from east to west, but as it sank into the

microcosm, it was still waiting for a time when it would
resound together with the Fifth Gospel. Human souls still
had to mature before they could understand that most
ancient and macrocosmic gospel, which is now meant to
echo in response to the microcosmic gospel of the east.
When we face the present moment with understanding,
we will also begin to understand that a fifth gospel can be
added to the four others.22

That macrocosmic Fifth Gospel, said Rudolf Steiner in

Dornach on the evening of September 20, is the urgently antic-
ipated gospel of gnosis that is becoming possible now and
will be increasingly possible in the future.23 A short time later,
the course advertised as From the Akashic Record: The Fifth
Gospel began in Kristiania.

Rudolf Steiner held five lectures in Kristiania and gave follow-

up presentations in eight German cities, ending on January
13, 1914.24 Quite surprisingly, and contrary to Andrei Belys
original expectations, all of these lectures were shaped exclu-
sively by their contents : the life of Jesus of Nazareth from age
twelve onward and the three earthly years of Christ Jesus until
his death on Golgotha. In Kristiania and in later recapitulations
and partial extrapolations on this theme in Germany, Rudolf
Steiner made no attempt to cover anthroposophical Christology
in its entirety. Instead, he made his audiences aware of the rela-
tionship between the realities of the Fifth Gospel and the
unique earthly life of the Christ (161, 40) He added, It is
to be hoped that in time these realities will converge into a
fifth gospel of sorts (243). Although Rudolf Steiner had been
dealing with the Gospels and the being of the Christ in published
works and lectures since the beginning of the twentieth century,
 Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures on the Fifth Gospel 11

his accounts of the Fifth Gospel were the first to encompass

the Christ-Event in the concrete reality of events that took
place in Palestine (217).25 The lectures on the Fifth Gospel also
were able to describe the Mystery of Golgotha in much greater
detail because they were based on observing the actual life of
Christ Jesus (73). This approach, Steiner said, leads us even
deeper into the nature of the Christ-Being.26, 27 In this connec-
tion, Steiner characterized his earlier Christological lectures as
abstract, even theoretical and thought-based (217, 324).
On December 17, 1913, in Cologne, he explained:

I might say that to date, the content of my discussions of the

Mystery of Golgotha, although based on esotericism, were
also theoretical. I talked about the essence and significance
of the Mystery of Golgotha as the central event in human-
itys earthly evolution. My thoughts on the centrality of
this event certainly sprang from the sources of esoteric
research, from sources that radiate from the Mystery of
Golgotha itself, so to speak, and come alive in our earthly
evolution as it progresses. In the phenomena of humanitys
evolution, the seers gaze discovers the significance of the
Mystery of Golgotha as I presented it previously.

Now, however, it is incumbent on me to speak in concrete

detail about events that took place at the beginning of the
Christian Era (283, italics added).

At present, according to Rudolf Steiner, it was both necessary

and possible to present a much more graphic picture of the
activity of Christ Jesus, a much more conscious understanding
of the figure of Christ Jesus, or even spiritual insight into the
person of Jesus of Nazareth (120, 219) The perspective is this:
in our time, it is truly necessary to renew our understanding of
the Christ Jesus, to take a new look at what actually happened
in Palestine in the Mystery of Golgotha (207)
12 Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel

Rudolf Steiner understood the content of his lectures on the

Fifth Gospel as communications from the Fifth Gospel, as ways
of conveying contents that were part of and acquired from the
Akashic Record: I intend to present these facts exactly as they
are found in what we call the Akashic Record, and people can
think whatever they like about them (158). Rudolf Steiner cer-
tainly did not compose the text of a new gospel himself and
then make people aware of it. Rather, he lectured on the basis
of the Fifth Gospel, taking a consistent, narrative approach to
reporting from the everlasting script and simply describing
what can be read in this Fifth Gospel (56, 94). He spoke in the
same way of narratives from the life of Jesus of Nazareth, nar-
ratives with the character of proclamations: This is the procla-
mation of the Fifth Gospel (56, 50). In Stuttgart on November
22, 1913, he said: I beg you to take this account as a Fifth
Gospel of sorts, a gospel that is given to our time just as the
other four gospels were given in their time (221). Similarly, in
the concluding lecture of the Norwegian cycle, he says, Please
note that I am telling the story of the Fifth Gospel, and it would
serve no purpose to immediately begin looking for contradic-
tions between it and the other four Gospels. I am simply telling
you about things as they appear in the Fifth Gospel (88f.).
In Kristiania and in the follow-up lectures, Rudolf Steiner
repeatedly emphasized the provisional nature of his accounts.28
These results of his current research, he said, were subject to
possible later correction, completion, and refinement, due in
good part to growing insight into the everlasting script and
to his expanding perception as spiritual circumstances changed:

In the near future, a time will come when we will be able to

speak more exactly. Much of what we now perceive in the
spiritual chronicle of becoming is merely suggestive, and
we may be able to recognize it much more precisely in the
 Rudolf Steiner and the Lectures on the Fifth Gospel 13

future. [] Hence my specific request that you take what I

have to say on this occasion only as a stimulus of sorts, as
something that will certainly be expressed much better and
more precisely in the future (37).

No one who dares to speak today about the mysteries of

Christianity should remain unaware of the fact that in a
relatively short time, anything that can be said today about
the most profound truths of humanitys evolution will
prove to be incomplete.

In Kristiania and later, Rudolf Steiner added an obligatory

caveat to specific individual descriptions from the Fifth Gospel,
pointing to the inherent degree of uncertainty in these aspects of
his presentations.30 He also commented on any subjects in need
of further research.31 For the rest, he regarded his initial descrip-
tions simply as the first elements in the intended overall picture
that was both spiritually possible and demanded by the situation
of the times. At the end of the course in Kristiania, he said:

Much more could still be said on the basis of this Fifth

Gospel. In the course of humanitys evolution, however,
the remaining parts of this gospel will certainly appear.
These isolated accounts were simply an attempt to give
you an impression of what the Fifth Gospel is like (96).

Once thoroughly researched in all its coherence and com-

pleteness, the Fifth Gospel was meant to be written down and
therefore be as accessible as the other four Gospels: A written
version of this Fifth Gospel does not yet exist, but certainly will
at some point in humanitys future (9).
In Kristiania, Rudolf Steiners comments in this regard were
thoroughly optimistic. Clearly, he would have been able to con-
tinue his presentations at that pointthat is, he had already
researched additional contents of the Fifth Gospel in the
14 Rudolf Steiner and the Fifth Gospel

spiritual script.32 His increasingly reserved tone in the lec-

tures in Germany, however, cannot be overlooked. The specific
continuations mentioned in Kristianiafor example, the back-
ground to the Sermon on the Mountnever materialized, and
follow-up lectures included little new content.33 By the end of
1913, Rudolf Steiner was considerably more circumspect about
the possibility of revealing the complete Fifth Gospel and setting
it down in writingperhaps his presentations from the Fifth
Gospel could be continued, he said in Cologne on December 18
(324). Perhaps further elaborations on the Fifth Gospel would
follow (Berlin, Epiphany 1914) (158). The conceptual dynamics
and perspectives of Steiners presentations had become appre-
ciably more restrained by the time he concluded his lecturing on
the Fifth Gospel in January 1914 (see chapter 3 in this book).

As Rudolf Steiner put it, I have managed to extract a few

important contents regarding the life of Christ Jesus from the so-
called Akashic Record, which we have often mentioned (220).
Steiner obtained these accounts from the Fifth Gospel through
esoteric study, through deep immersion and intuitive insight
into the substance of the Akashic Record, the everlasting script
(220). Rudolf Steiner had used the term Akashic Record as
early as 1904.34 According to Steiner, spiritual experiences and
accomplishments of human beings on earth are inscribed in the
substance of this record.35 In it, these accomplishments are pre-
served by spiritual beings and can also be experienced, since they
become accessible to the perception and memory of esoterically
developed individuals. According to Rudolf Steiner, the written
versions of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were
inspired by the Akashic Record rather than by earthly recollec-
tions of eye witnesses: The four Gospels actually came about in
the same way as the fifth, only the fifth appeared two thousand
years later (218).