___Book Review_______________________________________________________________

THE THREE YEARS - By Emil Bock. [Published in 2006 by Floris Books: Edinburgh.]

Review author: Tom Ravetz [Originally appeared in 'Perspectives' Vol 77 No1]

It is a great joy to reread Emil Bock's classic work, 'The Three Years', now in a new revised edition. The Three Years is one of the great classics of theology in The Christian Community. Bock describes his approach in the Foreword. Instead of a continuous historical narrative—a “life of Jesus”, as had been attempted by the theologians of the 19 th century—he gives “individual reflections” on aspects of the life of Christ. This approach leaves readers free to make connections and to continue researching for themselves.

The chapter on Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus is a characteristically bold and imaginative sweep that points up the remarkable, now almost forgotten figure of Apollonius—a magician and wonder-worker who attained great political influence in the first century—as a contrast to the figure of Jesus Christ. Bock makes it clear that the forces used by Apollonius were from the past—they were the old forces of magic and the ancient mysteries, which circumvent the human ego. The wide-ranging influence of Apollonius is shown in a double light: he was able to influence world events—Bock attributes to him the line of wise Caesars that followed Domitian, and gave the church of the second century a crucial breathing-space. However, Bock contrasts this influence with the enduring, world-transforming deed of Christ, the compass of whose life was so much more limited outwardly than that of Apollonius.

The significance of the life of Jesus did not consist in any external change or reformation of the world, but the world received a seed of new life. p 36

Two other aspects can be mentioned on hand of this chapter. The one is the context in which Bock came to these thoughts—in the Foreword he makes this very clear:

No word in this book is written without an awareness that … a modern understanding of Christ must be set against the demonic feverishness and satanic superficiality of a civilization which has turned to chaos and is writhing in its death-throes. p 12

The reflections on the futility of a human saviour, whose force comes from an atavistic power, have a clear bearing on the history of Germany in the 1930s.

The other aspect is that Bock's grand sweep sometimes leaves no space for a differentiated view of historical fact. This is not meant as a criticism, but as a note of caution for those who might think that by reading him one was in possession of the whole truth—something one cannot expect of any author. In his discussion of the criticism of Christianity by its pagan attackers, he implies that it was only the pagans who attached such importance to the miracle stories of Jesus, and therefore used Apollonius to “trump” him (p. 19). However, until the late middle ages, the miracle stories in the gospels were considered one of the most powerful proofs of the truth of Christianity by Christians themselves. There are stories of sceptics being told of the miracles described in the gospels, and being convinced by this testimony to convert to Christianity.

In the second chapter, Bock brings a masterly discussion of the problem of belief in miracles as it has been felt since the Enlightenment. Christians have felt forced into one of two positions: either holding modern, critical thinking at bay in order to preserve a special place of faith, where God can overturn the immutable laws of nature; or interpreting the miracles as legendary stories that did not really happen. Bock outlines a way of understanding miracle as spiritually real and yet involving no reversal of natural law. He quotes Friedrich Rittelmeyer: “the so-called miracles of Jesus are not a breaking of natural laws, but rather a breaking-through of higher laws of existence.” (p. 39) Bock also offers a key to understanding miracle in his interpretation of the Temptation. In this, Christ rejects the temptation to use his divine powers to overwhelm humanity. Bock's description of the Temptation arising from Christ's experience of the inner landscape of Jesus' soul gives a great key to understanding what otherwise can seem strange and distant legendary scenes.

Bock presents the Baptism of Jesus as “the one great central miracle”, and uses this event as the key to his picture of the Incarnation of Christ. 100 years after Friedrich Schleiermacher, the father of modern theology, rejected the dogmatic formulation of the Incarnation as irrelevant, and relegated discussion of the Trinity to the final chapter of his book, The Christian Faith, the founders of The Christian Community saw an urgent need to restore an understanding of Christ's spiritual nature. They saw in Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophy the possibility of moving beyond the polarity between dogmatic formulations and human piety.

Anthroposophy gives vital insights into the humanity of Jesus, whom we can see as a kind of summation of all the spiritual striving of humanity until the beginning of the Christian era. In the deeply moving descriptions of The Fifth Gospel , for example, it is made clear how Jesus feels as a human individual what mankind is experiencing as a whole: the utter despair and not knowing what will lead forward into the future. In this mood of soul he goes to the Jordan and receives the Baptism from John. There, something takes place that is expressed in a picture and in words. The picture is the descending dove, image of the Holy Spirit. The words are a quotation from the coronation Psalm of King David: “you are my beloved son, today I have begotten you.” Rudolf Steiner emphasises in many places that this was the moment when the ego of Jesus withdrew to make place for Christ, the Son of God. This image of the Incarnation shows us that it is a process that works from two sides. Everything that had ripened in the soul of Jesus, and of humanity, becomes the vessel to receive something higher. If one lives with this view for some time, one finds it hard to understand the view of mainstream Christianity, that the Incarnation happened instantaneously in the moment of conception. This is static, and it leaves no place for the human development that could make the Incarnation possible—development such as we hear about following the visit of the twelve-year old Jesus to the Temple .

However, as is the case with every insight, if it is taken in isolation it too becomes one-sided. Bock quotes with approval Apollinaris of Laodicea, a theologian of the fourth century who saw Christ replacing the nous , the mind or spirit of the man Jesus. Apollinaris' former pupil, Gregory of Nazianzus, had to point out the weakness in this picture. Christ can save us because he becomes truly human. He is no Zeus, cladding himself in the disguise of an earthly being. But the most crucial and important part of the human being is precisely the nous , the mind or guiding principle of the personality. If Jesus Christ did not have a human nous , how can he bring about our salvation? In a pithy phrase in keeping with the tone of the time, Gregory said: “What he has not assumed he has not saved”. The fullness of the humanity becomes a touchstone for soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. No amputated humanity is adequate for salvation. Bock does not go into this problem—he rightly sees that Apollinaris' one-sided emphasis counterbalances the “simple man of Nazareth ” of 19 th century theology.

At this point some readers might object that Bock is only presenting the picture that Rudolf Steiner gives. It is indeed the case that Steiner very often speaks of the Incarnation in simple terms, as we saw above: the ego of Jesus leaves, and is replaced by Christ. However, from the more detailed descriptions that Steiner gives in certain places, it is clear that this is a simplified picture, and that along with the displacement there was a union: the Christ-spirit unites with a human ego, one which offers up its normal development.[1] This is connected with the aspect of Rudolf Steiner's teaching which is sometimes presented in a rather sensational way, the so-called “two Jesus children”. There was a human ego within Jesus that was left when the other ego withdrew at the Baptism; it had sacrificed its possibility of becoming an earthly ego-organisation after the union of the two Jesus-children in the Temple at the age of 12. This being is ready to unite itself with Christ after the Baptism. The great church father Origen knew about the virginal soul that remained in paradise until it was needed to help bring about the Incarnation; he describes the closeness of its union with Christ as being like the iron's union with the glow of the heat of the fire. Even he, however, cannot describe so concretely how this union came about.

This gives us the picture of a full humanity, but one that makes a sacrifice so that the divine being can incarnate.

Bock's attempt to encompass the mystery of the indwelling Christ comes to expression on page 82, where he is speaking of the parallel between the experience of Jesus and the experience of the indwelling Christ which St. Paul describes as the aim of every Christian: “I die, …” “The human ego had passed out of his body altogether. In constant self-surrender, it had made real the mystery expressed later by St Paul , ‘Not I but Christ in me'. It had made space for the divine ego…” There is a contradiction here. If the self-surrender of the ego was “constant”, it must have still been present, ie not have “passed out of his body altogether”. In the very contradiction—did the ego leave, or did it constantly surrender itself?—we feel Bock groping towards the mystery. And when later, for example on page 104, he says: “What took place in these three years in the life of Jesus of Nazareth can be reflected in the corresponding years of the life of every person who unite themselves [sic] with Christ.” we see the need for a more differentiated view. There is a place where Rudolf Steiner speaks of what would have happened had Christ alone united with human beings: the sickness of sin in the human constitution would have been healed, but the moral deeds that human beings performed would have been robotic: they would have been “Christ-deeds, not human deeds”[2] Steiner speaks of the uniqueness of the Incarnation in Jesus, where “in place of the ego-consciousness the Son-consciousness lived after the Baptism.” It is through the Holy Spirit that human beings will “in future time elevate their I in full consciousness, and the Christ will still be able to dwell within such human beings.”

There is not space in a review such as this to do justice to the riches of this great book. Bock's method, which involves close study of the Gospel text, an awareness of the geographical mysteries of the life of Christ, and an imaginative and undogmatic relationship to the work of Rudolf Steiner, creates a rich tapestry. Every page gives food for thought, expressing new ideas or cladding ideas dimly understood with breadth and depth.

[1] See especially the lectures on the Gospel of Saint Luke, p. 184

[2] "The Mysteries of the Trinity", Fourth Lecture

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