The Son of Man & the Cosmic Christ by Oskar Kuerten

There are many occurrences reported in the Gospels that pose riddles for present-day human beings. Rudolf Steiner has made their comprehension accessible to us through his spiritual research. Among them is an event that took place when Christ Jesus was taken prisoner in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

In Mark 14, verse 51, we read: “And a youth was among His followers who wore a linen cloth about his body; and they seized him, but he left the linen cloth and fled naked.” In his lectures on the Gospel of St. Mark, Rudolf Steiner remarks: Who is this youth? Who escapes? Who is it that appears near Christ Jesus almost without clothing, and then slips away naked? It is the young cosmic impulse. It is the Christ that slips away and now has but a loose connection to the Son of Man....

Nothing is left to protect the new impulse; it has none of those elements with which the earlier times could envelop Mankind. It is the entirely exposed new cosmic impulse of earth evolutional. The fleeing youth is interpreted here as the cosmic impulse, the Cosmic Christ — as we learn in the further course of the lecture — who had been united with the Son of Man but then withdrew from him. Henceforth, He maintained only a loose connection with the Son of Man. 

Only after the Resurrection did He reunite with him. This cosmic element had enveloped the Christ in the form of an aura during the three years of His earthly life, . . . an aura through which cosmic forces and cosmic laws descended to earth. . . Christ was surrounded by a far- reaching, mighty aura. This aura with its powerful influence was there because He was united with the souls of those He had chosen; and it remained so long as He was united with them. (l)


This inner bond of Christ with His disciples was to remain throughout the events of Golgotha. This was Christ’s great concern as He embarked on the path leading to His passion and death; for even the disciples had not recog­nized the cosmic spirit in Christ. Thus Christ made a final attempt to maintain the inner union, at least with the specially chosen disciples, when He led Peter, James and John to the Mount of Olives.

And on the way He becomes afraid. . . Why is the Christ sorrowful? He does not recoil from the Cross. This can be taken for granted. He recoils at the thought, the question:

“Will those, whom I have brought with Me, be steadfast at the decisive moment that shall prove if they can go with Me in their souls — if they can experience with Me all things, even to the Cross?”. . . This is the “cup” approaching Him. And He leaves the three disciples so that they may remain “wake­ful”. . . Then He goes aside and prays: “Father, let this cup pass from Me, yet not My will but Thy will be done!”' This means: Do not let Me undergo the sorrow that I, as the Son of Man, will be left utterly alone. Let the others go with me.(l)

Yet, even the three chosen disciples could not remain wakeful. In their souls and in those of the other apostles, a strange condition of consciousness overcame them. They went about as in a dream for fifty days and only awakened from it when, at the event of Pentecost, the Spirit of the Universe descended upon them. They realized only then, in retrospect, what had occurred on Golgotha.

The cup had not passed from Him. Those whom He had chosen showed no understanding. Thus the aura gradually withdrew from the man, Jesus of Nazareth. The Christ and the Son of Man became ever more separated. Jesus of Nazareth became ever more alone toward the end of his life, and the Christ ever more loosely connected with him. Whereas the cosmic element was completely united with Jesus of Nazareth up to the moment when the “sweating of blood” takes place on Gethsemane, man’s incomprehension now loosens this con­ nection.... Although the cosmic element is still present, we find it joined less and less to the Son of Man. This makes the whole event so deeply moving.

And because the comprehension was not forthcoming — what did men attain in the end? Whom did they capture, sentence and crucify? The Son of Man! And the stronger their action became, the more the cosmic element withdrew, which as a youthful impulse was to enter earth life. It withdrew...

There remained behind the Son of Man, around whom now merely hovered what was to come forth as the young cosmic element. (1)

This cosmic element in the figure of the fleeing youth “is a spiritual, a supersensible element that became visible to the senses only because of the unique circumstances of that moment”. (1) It remained with the Son of Man, although loosely connected. And we see this youth again (in Mark 16, verses 5 and 6) when, at the early dawn of Easter morning, Mary Magdalene, with two other women, approaches the empty tomb and encounters a youth sitting there, clad in a white garment. Rudolf Steiner explains:

This is the same youth! Nowhere else in the artistic composition of the Gospels do we encounter this youth who slips away the instant that human beings condemn the Son of Man, who appears again after the three days are past, and who will henceforth be active as the cosmic principle of the earth.(l)

II

Who is this Son of Man, abandoned by the Cosmic Christ in the spirit-form of the fleeing youth? It would signify a complete contradiction to everything Rudolf Steiner says concerning the Mystery of Golgotha, if, from the above quotation, we were to conclude that it had been only the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, who as the Son of Man suffered the death on the Cross. After all, it is the unique significance of the Mystery of Golgotha that a god experienced death on earth.

Out of their midst, the gods had to send a being to the physical plane to experience something that gods otherwise cannot experience in the spiritual worlds. The gods had to send Christ to Earth . . . so He could learn the infinite agonies of men, agonies that for a god signify something totally different than for a human being.... A god had to suffer death on the Cross.(2)

As the only being of the spiritual worlds, Christ was to come to know death.... Hence, of all the celestial beings above man, Christ is the only One to have learned about death through His own experience. (3)

It had to be a divine being who would actually suffer human death on earth: Christ, who had entered the human sheaths of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism in the Jordan; who, united with Jesus as Christ Jesus, had then lived for three years on earth, and as an immortal passed through death on the Cross in the dying body of Jesus.

Rudolf Steiner stresses this fact again and again. Thus directly following his remarks about the fleeing youth, he speaks of the "judging, condemning, and crucifying of Christ Jesus,” (4) hence, not of Jesus alone. In another lecture he refers to Christ as “the One who dwelt on earth, was crucified as Jesus of Nazareth and laid in the earth, then appeared to His initiated disciples in a spiritual body.” (5) Indeed, how could we speak of Christ as the “Resurrected One,” if Christ had not actually undergone death?

Therefore, Christ could not possibly have separated from Jesus in Gethsemane but remained united with him even beyond death. The Son of Man is thus the Christ Jesus, the union of the two beings. The Cosmic Christ, however, must be something different. And indeed, Rudolf Steiner says that the youth, the Cosmic Christ, appeared “next to Christ Jesus” and “at the decisive moment separated, as it were, from Christ Jesus.” (1) Thus Rudolf Steiner distinguishes between Christ Jesus and the Cosmic Christ, the fleeing youth. Concerning Christ’s prayer on the Mount of Olives, he relates how Christ called Himself the Son of Man.

III

How, then, are we to understand the “Cosmic Christ”? Comparing many of Rudolf Steiner’s statements, we may conclude that a trinity of divine-spiritual Beings stands behind the Christ appearance on earth. First the Logos, the second principle of the Divine Trinity; then, His direct bearer and body of light, Christ, the Lofty Sun Spirit, the Ahura Mazdao of Zarathustra; and third, the leader of the hierarchy of the archangels.(6)

Mark describes the Sun Aura, the Great Aura, the Light Body, the Spirit Light that permeates the universe and that works into the being of Christ Jesus. Mark therefore begins with the Baptism by John, when the Cosmic Light descends. In the Gospel of St. John, however, the soul of this Sun Spirit is described to us, the Logos, the Sun Word, the inner aspect.(7)

Here, the Sun Word, the Logos, and then the Sun Spirit, the mighty Sun Aura, are clearly distinguished from the Christ in Jesus. Rudolf Steiner calls this Lofty Sun Spirit “a cosmic deity,” (7) the “leading Cosmic Spirit,” (8) and also “the leader and guide of all the beings of the higher hierarchies, an all-encompassing, cosmic, uni­versal Being.” (9)

During the ancient Sun evolution, the Logos and, as its bearer, the Lofty Sun Spirit, had descended from cosmic heights to the sun to unite with the leader of the archangels, the regent of the sun. Thereby, this leader of the archangels became the bearer of the Logos and of the Lofty Sun Spirit, and thus the ruler of our whole solar system. (10) As a divine mediator, he served the Logos and the Lofty Sun Spirit during Their descent from the sun to the earth by incarnating in Jesus of Nazareth. This Christ-Archangel stood only two levels above the level of man, and in his divine nature was still relatively close to the human nature of Jesus, whereas the other two Christ Beings are infinitely far above man. They could not unite with Jesus directly in a bodily manner. The Logos, and the Lofty Sun Spirit, and the Christ-Archangel, termed “Christ” in equal measure by Rudolf Steiner, are united in triune manner, as it were. The knowledge of this trinity concerning the Christ phenomenon clarifies many otherwise incomprehensible statements by Rudolf Steiner.

Only in reference to the Christ-Archangel does Rudolf Steiner say that He was “physically incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth”, that He “actually dwelt among us in a physical sheath; that He was truly within a physical body.”(11) Therefore, if we read elsewhere that only “one— mark this well — one being of the divine-spiritual world descended to the level of dwelling in a human body within the sense world, living as man among other men” (12) then this being can only have been the Christ-Archangel. Through Him, however, the Logos and the Lofty Sun Spirit were linked to the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, due to Their Oneness with the Christ-Archan­gel. Thus, it can be said of Them, too, that They took possession of the body of Jesus and “became flesh” in Jesus, spoke and worked through him and participated in the event of Golgotha in mysterious ways veiled from us.

IV

The Logos and the Lofty Sun Spirit are the actual bearers of the cosmic element that was to enter earth evolution as the new impulse of the future. This cosmic element enveloped Christ Jesus like a protective aura, safeguarding Him from His opponents so that fundamentally, Christ was active in such a manner that nothing could be done against Him.... Whereas earlier, the Cosmic Christ had extended His influence into the temple, spreading the most powerful teachings, and nothing had happened; the soldiers could now draw near, when Jesus of Nazareth stood in a much looser connection with the Christ (1)

Only after the protective aura had left Christ Jesus, could the soldiers lay hands on Him. The Christ-Archangel in Jesus could not have protected Himself; because of His union with the bodily sheaths of Jesus, He had become human like other men. Rudolf Steiner once actually speaks of Christ’s “becoming Jesus.” (13) Beginning with the Baptism in the Jordan, in unimaginable agony the Christ Being descended ever more deeply into the body of Jesus, which increasingly wasted away under the power of the Christ force penetrating it like fire. And with His becoming human, Christ increasingly lost His divine power.

The Christ Being had to experience how the divine power and force increasingly vanished as He became one with the body of Jesus of Nazareth. A god gradually became a human being.

Like a person who in unceasing suffering watches his body waste away, so the Christ Being saw His divine substance diminish. As an etheric Being He increasingly came to resemble the earthly body of Jesus of Nazareth, until He became so similar that He could actually feel fear like a human being.... The miraculous divine power left Him.” (14)

As a divine Being in the abundance of His divine powers Christ had entered His earthly incarnation of three years’ duration with the Baptism in the Jordan. At the end, only weak human forces were left at His disposal. For a time, the Christ in Jesus, the Christ-Archangel, had to relin­quish his divine powers in the course of becoming human, so that He could suffer death on the Cross as a god become man. And the Logos and the Lofty Sun Spirit had temporarily to withdraw Their powerful cosmic forces from Christ Jesus so far as external effects were concerned, so that He could be apprehended by the soldiers.

It must have been the forces of the Logos and of the Lofty Sun Spirit that withdrew from Christ Jesus as the “Cosmic Christ” in the image of the fleeing youth. After the Resurrection of Christ Jesus, They then reunited Their cosmic forces with the divine forces of the risen Christ-Archangel in order henceforth to live in Their triune Oneness as the Spirit of the Earth in human souls on earth.


- By OSKAR KUERTEN (1886-1973) 

From Mitteilungen aus der anthroposophischen Arbeit in Deutschland, Easter 1971. Translated by Maria St. Goar.




Notes: 
1. Sept. 23, 1912: The Gospel of St. Mark, lecture IX.

2. April 17, 1912: The Three Paths of the Soul to Christ, lect. II.

3. April 27, 1913: Life Between Death and a New Birth.

4. Sept. 24, 1912: The Gospel of St. Mark, lect. X.

5. April 24, 1922: Man 's Life on Earth and in the Spiritual Worlds.

6. For more details see Oskar Kuerten: Der Sonnengeist Christus in der Darstellung Rudolf Steiner's, Verlag Die Pforte, Basel 1967.

7. Sept. 12, 1910: The Gospel of St. Matthew, lect. XII.

8. June 27, 1909: The Gospel of St. John, lect. IV.

9. Aug. 21, 1911: Wonders of the World, Ordeals of the Soul, Revelations of the Spirit, lect. IV.

10. June 12, 1912: Man in the Light of Occultism, Theosophy & Philosophy, lect. X.

11. June 6, 1907: Theosophy of the Rosicrucians, lect. XIV.

12. Aug. 28, 1909: The East in the Light of the West, lect. VI.

13. Aug. 24, 1918: The Mysteries of the Sun and of Threefold Man, lect. I (Typescript).

14. Oct 3, 1913: The Fifth Gospel, lect. III.

[Easter]