Tracing archetypal pictures of the Christ event and how the Christ event is not a copy, but a fulfilment

a talk by Rev. Michaël Merle on Sunday 8 February 2025

Report by John-Peter Gernaat

Before the Christ event, before the Baptism in the Jordan, there existed many stories, legends and myths of a mighty, or special human being or a god, born in exceptional circumstances that could be interpreted as a virginal birth, who became a leader with twelve followers, who healed the sick and did other miracles, who died and was raised on the third day. For some people Jesus is seen merely as another one of these men of legend following a long tradition.

How is it that other people are aware of these legends and are happy to honour them until there is a fulfilment of the legends in the totality of the idea? Many scholars study the Gospels and these legends and see in the Gospels a copy of the legends that went before.

We can compare what these scholars contend with, for example, the author JK Rowling. Nothing that JK Rowling wrote about was new, not the mythical creature she brought into her stories, nor the magical spells, not even the adventures she describes. All she does is to cast them in a new setting with new protagonists. Thus, scholars studying the Gospels read in the Gospels nothing new but rather all the ancient legends brought together into a new story with a new protagonist. Therefore, Jesus is seen as one among many special people of legend but not as a fulfilment of a meaningful reality.

How do we know that the story in the Gospels is a fulfilment and not a copy? In truth, one will not know this by reading the Gospels. One will simply arrive at the same conclusion as the scholars who see no special meaning in the Gospels, but rather only a myth that follows a long pattern of similar myths.

The only way to know that the Gospels speak of a fulfilment and not a copy of a legend, is when one knows. One must then ask, “how do I come to know something?” How do I achieve knowledge and not simply attain information? The Gospels are filled with information.

For some people blind faith is sufficient, but they also do not know. The institutional church advocated faith as the way to know that the story in the Gospels is the fulfilment, belief as faith.

Today, with the evolution of our consciousness and our capacity for research, we are no longer satisfied with this advocation by the church to believe.

Yet, when we go back to Saint Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109), he said, “faith seeks understanding”. Therefore, to know is to have a faith that seeks to understand. So, how can we come to understand? We always come to understand through engaging with what or whom we seek to know. Through observation we begin to see patterns and methodologies and we can develop an anticipation. We learn to understand by developing a relationship. When an understanding leads us to rely on what we are seeking to know, the relationship develops to firm ground on which we can rely. Thus, through a relationship we can come to know the thing or person and thereby come to understand them, even if it differs from us. We can then stand on the same ground that supports them.

That is what faith seeks, it seeks to understand. This means that faith seeks a relationship.

The Gospels reveal how this is incorporated into the writings of these Gospels. These indications help us to realise that when we develop the relationship, we are not dealing with a copy of many legends but with the fulfilment, even when elements have been drawn in as metaphors. We need metaphors as symbols to carry into the relationship to help our understanding, because human beings understand symbols and well-known attachments.

In the Gospel of John, we can look at the first words spoken by Jesus. This Gospel begins with a cosmic picture. Then we find human beings in a relationship with one another. John the Baptist has a relationship to Jesus, not because they are cousins, but because John has experienced something by being a witness to an event. The One who sent John to baptise with water – this would be a mighty representative of God or even the Father God – said to John, “he on whom you see the Spirit descend so that it remains united with him, he it is who baptises with the Holy Spirit”. John saw this and therefore testified (witnesses) that the one whom he picks out of the crowd is the anointed one. The next day John is with two of his own disciples and he says, “Behold, the Lamb of God”. The disciples immediately left John and followed Jesus. The statement of John was meaningful to these disciples. Jesus turned and said to them, “What are you seeking?”

Note that John had disciples, because all masters have disciples. If those disciples are to represent a reality of the whole community, then there are twelve disciples. Twelve represents a complete span. Jesus had more than twelve disciples but twelve became the representatives of all discipleship. They became a reality that could be recognised.

One of the reasons we can find assurance that the Gospels are not a copy is that they are not written to convince us by force of argument and factual presentation. They were written in order for us to answer the question ‘what are you seeking?’ They were written in order for us to appreciate and understand the invitation to a relationship. It is only in that relationship that we can confirm for ourselves whether this is a fulfilment or just a copy.

The scholars who see in the Gospels only a story, have no relationship to Christ. They have not been seeking anything other than the story.

However, if one uses the story in order to seek a relationship, then, once one is in the relationship and is working with the faith that seeks understanding; one will begin to have an experience. One will experience oneself in the relationship and one will experience the Christ in the relationship. Out of that relationship will come the understanding that this is the fulfilment of the Ages; that from the beginning there has been a picture, a picture that was presented in unusual and strange terminology and story form, that was reimagined and translated again and again. Some of these reimaginations of the picture can be traced from one civilisation to the one following it; but outside of these lines of civilisations the same picture is also to be found.

We must consider what it is that works in the souls of human beings who study the cosmic movements seriously and recognise that once they have completely understood the path of the sun can say to themselves that the eleven constellations of stars, they have recognised is not the complete picture, there must be twelve. These people were living with a reality beyond what they were observing, and they were matching their observations with their pre-existing relationship to the reality of the cosmos. They knew that this reality had not yet fully unfolded. It was a reality that was anticipatory.

This is the reality, one can say, that the magi experience when they see the star. This was a star that Herod and the people of Jerusalem could not see, even when the magi saw it and followed it. It was a star that required organs of perceptions that were developed through the studies that these sages undertook. The experience the magi have arises out of a relationship they have developed.

Reading now the end of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16 from verse 14), the Risen One is now the twelfth in the constellation of the eleven disciples (after Judas had completed his deed). This constellation remains twelve after the Ascension when the apostles elect a twelfth. “And he reprimanded them for their lack of openness and their hardness of heart, because they had not wanted to believe those who had seen him, the Risen One.” Firstly, one only reprimands someone with whom one is in a relationship. The Gospel is entirely based on an experience and on the testimony of people. It is a reality because someone can say, “I was there”. They are not there only in the sense reality of being present, but in the inner spiritual cognition and perception.

Read on to the end of the chapter 16. One can say that the things proclaimed in these last verses are not manifest in the world we live in. We do not see demons being driven out or people speaking new languages. We do not see people raising up serpents or surviving the drinking of poisons. We do not see people being healed by the laying on of hands or giving healing forces to others. Yet, this is not the case even though it may appear to be so. But consider how this pertains to ourselves, then we must recognise that we have the power to drive out the demons that live in us because of the experience of a relationship we have to Christ, the Christ in us. We have the power to dispel demons in us, ideas that do not lead us on our chosen path. We have the power to speak in a new language, not a new tongue, but a language of love, compassion and community that is befitting of being human. We can raise up the serpent-like energy of being human within us. We will not suffer death in the poisons of the words and gestures of other people. We may lay our loving touch on others through deeds and words that will heal their soul wounds. We can give to others the healing forces of love.

How do we know that the Gospels are a fulfilment and not a copy? Because there is a new mandate in the Gospel, only one in the entirety of the Gospels. A mandate is not only a task to be fulfilled but it comes with the authority to fulfil the task. The new mandate is: “Love one another as I love you”. The previous commandments to love one another or to love others as we love ourselves are less onerous to fulfil, they are within human capacity. To fulfil the new mandate means that our relationship to Christ becomes the relationship to every other human being. This is not a copy of what had come before.

It is not a copy, even though it has all the elements of the previous stories, because it changes the way we relate to one another to the way we relate to God. And it makes us responsible to figure out how to have this relationship. This is more than any previous cult (in the truly religious sense) has asked of its people.
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We are being asked to be the fulfilment of the Gospel; the story does not fulfil itself. The fulfilment of the picture of Christ is not to be found in the Bible, it is in us. The Kingdom of God is not described in the Gospels it is manifested when we are able to manifest it out of us. The Kingdom of God is within.

The Gospels support us, but if what is in the Gospels is not in us it does not exist. So, if we want to know that the picture of the Christ is a fulfilment and not a copy, we must ask of ourselves:

1. Am I in a relationship with Christ?
2. Do I have an experience of Him?
3. Am I connected to the mandate?

Read the Gospel (the full canon of the Gospels, letters and Revelation) because it brings us into a relationship with Christ.

The real connection one may find with the lectures and books of Rudolf Steiner is his relationship with the Christ-Being. He is clear in his stance that this event as described in the Gospels, the experience of the activity of the Divine on earth, is the turning point of time. It is the one event that changes everything. Because of this clear understanding, he could connect all the previous legends and myths and incorporate them because he had understood through his own relationship, the experience of the Christ-event and the experience of the Christ-Being. The Christ-impulse to love permeates all of what he said and wrote. It is in his relationship to Christ that true understanding comes to light, and the Gospel comes alive.