Mary, mother of Jesus

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Raphael: Sistine Madonna, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Dresden)

Mary (Hebrew: מרים Mirjam; Aramaicܡܪܝܡ; Arabic مريم Maryam, Mariam, Meryem or Marjam; Greek: Μαριάμ Mariam), also called Madonna (Italian: "my lady") in artistic representation, is, according to the tradition of the New Testament and the w:Quran, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, more precisely of the Nathanian Jesus. After her heavenly transfiguration, she is venerated as the Queen of Heaven (Latin: regina caeli or regina coeli) and is depicted in the Apocalypse of John in the image of the "woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars" (Rev 12:1ESV).

The Virgin Sophia

→ Main article: Virgin Sophia

In esoteric Christianity, the mother of Jesus was always called the "Virgin Sophia", as also by John the Evangelist; only exoterically does he call her the "Mother of Jesus". In Christian esotericism, this refers to the astral body purified of lower sensual desires (→ catharsis) and elevated to the spiritual self. The fact that Mary's virginity must not be misunderstood as an external miracle in the bodily sense is also emphasised by the apocryphal Gospel of Philip, which belongs to the Valentinian gnosis:

„Some said, "Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit." They are in error. They do not know what they are saying. When has a woman ever become pregnant by a woman? Mary is the virgin whom no power stained. She is a great sanctuary for the Hebrews, that is the apostles and the disciples of the apostles. This virgin who stained no power, the powers stained themselves. And the Lord would not have said, "My Father who is in heaven," if He had not had another Father, but He would simply have said, "My Father!"“

– Gospel of Philip: Proverb 17

The Two Jesus Boys and the Two Figures of Mary

Raphael's Madonna Terranuova with John the Baptist and the two Jesus boys.

Rudolf Steiner pointed out that at the begin of the Common Era not one but two Jesus boys were born, the Nathanian Jesus and the Solomonic Jesus. Accordingly, there were also two sets of parents. Rudolf Steiner states that the parents of both Jesus boys were called Joseph and Mary, which is not unusual, since these names were widespread in Palestine at that time. The figure commonly identified with Mary is the mother of the Nathanian Jesus boy whose birth story is described in the Gospel of Luke. The Nathanian Jesus, as is clear from the genealogical register of Luke's Gospel, came from the Nathanian line of the House of David. He descended to an earthly birth for the very first time at the dawning of the new age, but long before that he had a close relationship with the Christ in the spiritual world and prepared with Him through the preliminary stages to the Mystery of Golgotha His earthly incarnation, which only took place with the Jordan baptism in the 30th year of Jesus of Nazareth's life. The story of the second boy Jesus, the Solomonic Jesus, who descended from the Solomonic line of David, is described in the Gospel of Matthew. According to Rudolf Steiner, he was the reborn high Persian initiate Zarathustra.

„Let us take the facts for a moment. The writer of the Gospel of Matthew describes that the birth of the Creator of Christianity is proclaimed in advance, that this birth takes place, that magi come from the East who have perceived the star, that the star has led them to the place where the Redeemer is born. He also describes that Herod is made aware of this and that, in order to escape Herod's measure, which consists of the Bethlehemite infanticide, the parents of the Redeemer flee with the child to Egypt. When Herod was dead, Joseph, the father of Jesus, was told that he could return, and he did not return to Bethlehem for fear of Herod's successor, but went to Nazareth. - Today I want to refrain from the announcement of the Baptist. But I would like to point out that if we compare the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew with each other, in the two Gospels the proclamation of Jesus of Nazareth is made quite differently: in one case it is made to Joseph, in the other to Mary. We then see from Luke's Gospel how the parents of Jesus of Nazareth originally live in Nazareth and then go to Bethlehem on one occasion, namely for the census. While they are there, the Jesus is born. Then after eight days the circumcision takes place - nothing of a flight to Egypt - ; and after some time, which is not far after, the child is presented in the temple. We see that the sacrifice is offered, which is customary, and that afterwards the parents go back with the child to Nazareth and live there. And then we are told of a strange procession, the procession of how the twelve-year-old Jesus stays behind in the temple during a visit that his parents have made to Jerusalem, how they search for him, how they then find him again in the temple among those who interpret the Scriptures, how he confronts them there as an expert in the interpretation of the Scriptures, how he appears intelligent and wise in the circle of the scribes. Then we are told how they take the child home again, how he grows up; and we hear nothing more special about him until John's baptism.

There we have two stories of Jesus of Nazareth before the reception of the Christ.“ (Lit.:GA 114, p. 27f)

„Thus we see two Jesus-children growing up, one the son of the Nathanian parents Joseph and Mary, and we see this son being born of a young mother - in Hebrew the word Alma would have been used for it - ; for that which was to work as a young soul had to be born of a very young mother. With this son, the parents returned to Nazareth after their return from Bethlehem. They had no other children. Then we have the Jesus of the parents Joseph and Mary from the line of Solomon. After this pair of parents returned from Egypt and moved to Nazareth, they had a number of other children, which you will find listed in the Gospel of Mark: Simon, Judas, Joses, James and also two sisters (Mark 6:3). - The two Jesus-children grow up. The child, which contains the Zarathustra individuality within itself, gradually develops with tremendously rapid maturation those powers which it must develop when such a powerful individuality is active in the body. The individuality which is active in the body of the other Jesus is of a different kind. The most important thing about it is the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha. That is something that rests on this child. That is why we are told when the parents return from Jerusalem: The child is full of wisdom - that is, in his etheric body he is permeated with wisdom - and the grace of God is upon him (Luke 2:40). But it grew up in such a way that it was extraordinarily slow in developing the ordinary human qualities that relate to understanding and cognition in the external world. The trivial man would have called this very Jesus-child a "relatively retarded child", if he had only looked at what powers of understanding and comprehension of the external world are. But it was precisely in this child that what flowed down from the Buddha's Nirmanakaya shadowing it developed. It developed a depth of inwardness that cannot be compared with anything in the world. A depth of feeling developed in the boy that had an extraordinary effect on the whole environment. - Thus we see an emotional being growing up in the Nathanian Jesus, and we see an individuality with a tremendous maturity, with a deep understanding of the world, growing up in the Solomonic Jesus.

Now the mother of the Nathanian Jesus, that emotional child, had been told something significant. Already when Simeon stood opposite the newborn child and saw him outshone by the one whom he had not yet been able to see in India as Buddha, he foretold the great and mighty things that were now to take place; but he also said the great, meaningful words about the "sword that was to pass through the mother's heart" (Luke 2:35). This word also refers to something we still want to understand today.

In the immediate vicinity and under the friendly relations of the parents, the two children grew up and both developed until about their twelfth year. When the twelfth year of the Nathanian Jesus approached, his parents went to Jerusalem, as it is said, according to custom, to participate in the Easter feast, and they took the child with them, as was customary when children matured. Now in the Gospel of Luke there is an extraordinarily mysterious account of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple. It says: "When the parents returned from the feast, they suddenly missed the boy, and finding him nowhere among the travelling party, they went back and found him in the temple in the midst of the great teachers, astonishing them all with his wisdom (Luke 2:41–50).

What had happened there? Let us ask the imperishable Akasha Chronicle about this. The facts of the world are not so simple. What happened here also happens in other ways in the world. It happens that an individuality at a certain stage of development needs other conditions than those given to it from the beginning. Therefore it happens again and again that a human being grows up to a certain age - and then suddenly faints and is as if dead. Then a transformation takes place: his own I leaves him and another I takes its place in his physicality. Such a rearrangement of the I also takes place in other cases; it is a phenomenon known to every occultist. Here, with the twelve-year-old Jesus, the following had happened: That I-ness which until then, as Zarathustra-I-ness, had used the body of Jesus from the royal line of the Davidic dynasty, in order to come to the height of his time, penetrated out of the body of the Solomonic Jesus-boy and transferred itself to the Nathanian Jesus, who therefore appeared like one transformed. The parents did not recognise him, they did not understand his words. For now the Zarathustra-I, which had transferred itself to him, spoke out of the Nathanian Jesus. That was the time when the Nirmanakaya of the Buddha united with the excreted maternal astral body, and that was also the time when the Zarathustra-I united with the nathanic Jesus. Now the Zarathustra-I lived in the nathanic Jesus. And this child, who was so transformed that the parents could not understand him, they took home with them.

In a not too distant time, the mother of this Jesus-child died, so that this child, in which the Zarathustra-I now dwelt, was orphaned on the mother's side. We shall see that the fact that this mother died and left the child orphaned still points to a particularly deep connection. - The other child, too, could not live on in ordinary circumstances when the Zarathustra I had left it. Joseph of the Solomonic line had died earlier, and the mother of the Solomonic child Jesus with her children, James, Joses, Judas, Simon and the two daughters, was taken into the house of the Nathanian Joseph, so that Zarathustra now lived together again with the family into which he had incarnated, except for the father. In this way the two families merged into one, and so the mother of the brothers and sisters - we can call them brothers and sisters, for according to the I they are brothers and sisters - lives in the house of the Nathanian Joseph with Jesus, who, however, according to his father's city, was bodily at home in Nazareth. So he lived together with them.

Thus we see in concrete terms the confluence of Buddhism and Zarathustrism.“ (Lit.:GA 114, p. 108ff)

Literature

German
References to the work of Rudolf Steiner follow Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works (CW or GA), Rudolf Steiner Verlag, Dornach/Switzerland, unless otherwise stated.
Email: verlag@steinerverlag.com URL: www.steinerverlag.com.
Index to the Complete Works of Rudolf Steiner - Aelzina Books
A complete list by Volume Number and a full list of known English translations you may also find at Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works
Rudolf Steiner Archive - The largest online collection of Rudolf Steiner's books, lectures and articles in English.
Rudolf Steiner Audio - Recorded and Read by Dale Brunsvold
steinerbooks.org - Anthroposophic Press Inc. (USA)
Rudolf Steiner Handbook - Christian Karl's proven standard work for orientation in Rudolf Steiner's Collected Works for free download as PDF.
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