"My dear friends, when the pupils of the old initiates looked out into the wide universe and spoke of what they saw living out there beyond the Earth in the workings of the Sun, yes, in the Sun itself — when they spoke of the sublime Spirit-Being of the Sun as proclaimed by Zarathustra, they were speaking of the very same Being Whom, in these later times, we designate as Christ." — Rudolf Steiner, MAN'S LIFE ON EARTH AND IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS (Health Research Books, 1960), pp. 14-15.
“The Sun was itself a kind of being of air, surrounded by that substance which had previously formed Saturn-fire, warmth. The part that had densified had formed the gaseous Sun, and what had not densified was a surging sea of fire. These beings could live on the Sun and inhale and exhale warmth, fire; they were therefore called the Spirits of Fire. They stood at the human level on the Sun and they worked in the service of humanity. One calls them Sun Spirits or Fire Spirits. Man at that time was at the stage of sleep-consciousness, the Sun-Fire Spirits had already the ego consciousness. Since then they too have developed further and ascended to higher degrees of consciousness. One calls them in Christian Esotericism Archangels. And the highest evolved Spirit Who was on the Sun as Fire Spirit, Who today is still active upon the Earth, with very highly evolved consciousness, this Sun or Fire Spirit is the Christ. In the same way the most evolved Saturn Spirit is the Father God.
“Christian Esotericism knows that there was incarnated in the body of flesh and blood of Christ-Jesus precisely such a Sun-Fire Spirit, and indeed the highest, the Regent of the Sun Spirits. That He might come on to the Earth He had to make use of a physical body, He had to live under the same earthly conditions as man, in order to be able to manifest here.” — Rudolf Steiner, ROSICRUCIAN WISDOM (Rudolf Steiner Press, 2000), p. 97.
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