Jesus & the Archangel

The higher we go we find that Christ is of the Trinity and then condescends through the Seraphim, Cherubim and so on to become an Archangel and then man.

Now, my reading of Rudolf Steiner says that Michael is that Archangel.

From The Pre Earthly Deeds of Christ:"He who was later the Nathan-Jesus had been present in the three earlier events, but not incarnated as physical man; he lived in the spiritual worlds as a spiritual Being of the nature of the Archangels; and in the spiritual worlds, in the preparatory stages of the Mystery of Golgotha, in the Lemurian age and twice in Atlantis, he was permeated by the Christ-Being."

Notice he lived as one who had "the nature of the Archangels", but he was of an Angelic nature:

"It may be said, therefore, that there were three Archangel-lives in the spiritual world, and that the Being who lived those lives was the same as he who was later incarnated as man and is described in the Gospel of St. Luke as the Jesus-child. Three times had this Angelic being, who later sacrificed himself as Man, offered himself for permeation by the Christ-Impulse. As in Christ Jesus we have a Man permeated with the Christ-Impulse, so it may be said that three times previously we have an Angel permeated with that Impulse. "​

Dr. Steiner's teaching is that the Nathan child was a pure soul who was not involved in the Fall. He had also been Krishna. I hadn't consider him as an Archangel nature. This is a new thought- and quite convoluted too.

The fact that the "Christ Impulse" incarnated in an Angelic being as stated above, is contradicted by Steiner here:

"I admit that it may seem strange when I say that this great Being was ensouled three times in an archangelic form, and then incarnated in a human being. It would seem a more orderly progression if between His ensoulment as an archangel and His human incarnation He had taken an angelic form. So it may seem to us. Yet, even though it is claimed that the statements of spiritual science are fictitious, truly it is not so. You may gather this from corroborative evidence. If you ask me how it happens that Christ did not descend from hierarchy to hierarchy and only afterward to man - if you were to ask me that, I could only answer that I do not know, for I never make theoretical combinations. The facts adduced by spiritual research are that Christ chose three times an archangelic form, leaving out the angelic form, and then made use of a human body. I leave it to future research to determine the reason, which I do not yet know, though I do know that it is true. "

Was he making a correction, because the Pre Earthly Deeds of Christ lecture was given in March and the Four Sacrifices in June 1914?

From the Four Sacrifices of Christ:

"This danger to humanity was averted in the Lemurian age by a Being Who later, through the Mystery of Golgotha, incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. In this earlier age, however, He ensouled Himself - I cannot say incarnated - in one of the archangels.

"While the earth was working through the Lemurian age, a Being living in spiritual heights became manifest - one might say, as a sort of prophecy of John's baptism - in an archangel who offered up his soul powers, and was thus permeated by the Christ."

So in this lecture we are again talking about the Nathan Jesus (though he is not mentioned by name).

Then we find the Nathan Jesus being talked about as though he had been ensouled with the Archangel Michael:

"Once more the Christ Being ensouled Himself in an archangel, and the power thus generated in the spiritual world made possible the harmonization of thinking, feeling and willing........

"Mankind has preserved some memory of how human passion and human thinking were harmonized at this period by forces that descended from supramundane worlds, but the sign of this memory is not rightly understood. St. George who conquers the dragon, or Michael who conquers the dragon, are symbols of the third Christ event, when Christ ensouled Himself in an archangel. It is the dragon, trodden under foot, that has brought thinking, feeling and willing into disorder. All who turn their gaze upon St. George or Michael with the dragon, or some similar episode, perceive, in reality, the third Christ event. The Greeks who in their wonderful mythology made copies of what happened in the spiritual world at the end of the Atlantean age, revered the Sun Spirit as the harmonizer of man's thinking, feeling and willing."

Now the Nathan Jesus is forgotten:

"Then came the fourth, the earthly mystery, that of Golgotha. The same Christ Being Who had ensouled Himself three times in archangelic form incarnated through what we call the Baptism by John in the Jordan in the body of Jesus of Nazareth."

I'm not too clear on all this. Just what is the connection of the Archangel Michael to the Nathan Jesus?