Widow's Son, Page 7

The lecture goes on to speak of the transference of authority over to Elisha, but that is beyond our immediate need as it regards Elijah.¹⁵ We shall now accordingly look independently at his successor Elisha as the next Biblical example of a Widow’s Son.

2 K 4,1-7: (1) Now the wife of one of the sons of the prophets cried to Elisha, “Your servant my husband is dead; and you know that your servant feared the Lord, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves.” (2) And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house, except a jar of oil.” (3) Then he said, “Go outside, borrow vessels of all your neighbors, empty vessels and not too few. (4) Then go in, and shut the door upon yourself and your sons, and pour into all these vessels; and when one is full, set it aside.” (5) So she went from him and shut the door upon herself and her sons; and as she poured they brought the vessels to her. (6) When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. (7) She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons shall live on the rest.”¹⁶

From 2 K 2,13 we know that the “mantle of Elijah fell on Elisha,” and we can see immense similarities in the miracles they performed. We could wish that time had permitted Steiner to devote the attention to Elisha that he did to Elijah, but we know that he pointed the direction and laid the groundwork for many disciplines in which he urged his followers to carry on to new applications. In that spirit, it seems not too much to see in the above passage a Widow’s Son situation for Elisha also. Obviously, the servant of the Individuality of Elisha, namely, the husband of the woman, was deceased making her a widow, and she was about to lose her two sons. While the “temple sleep” is not explicit here, it is perhaps implied by this telescoped version of the parallel Elijah passage and the demands of Elijah’s “mantle.” The balance of Chapter 4 is not quoted above but involves the raising of the son of an “old woman.” It is probably not inappropriate to see in 2 K 4, especially the quoted portion above, the identification of the personality of one of the Widow’s Sons with the Individuality of Elisha, just as was the case in 1 K 17 with Elijah.

Lk 7,11-15: (11) Soon afterward he went to a city called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. (12) As he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and a large crowd from the city was with her. (13) And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” (14) And he came and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said “Young man, I say to you, arise.” (15) And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother.

The majesty of the Individuality of the “Young Man” of Nain is by no means recognizable from the exoteric reading of this passage. That this seems to have occurred early in Jesus’ ministry before the authorities began to seek his life (cf. Jn 11,50 and 12,10-11) is probably Luke’s way of saying this was the first initiation carried out by Jesus personally, even preceding that of Lazarus, thus indicating its immense significance.¹⁷ This is strongly hinted by Steiner in GSL, Lect. 10, pp. 185-186, and the connection with the personality of Mani (discussed above) and the Individuality of Manu is elaborated by Lievegoed in BATSO, Chap. 6. That Individuality is there, as in TL, Lect. 6, identified as perhaps the highest “stream” in humanity’s evolution. The depth of its significance is such that it is only touched upon by Luke, much as the significance of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple (Lk 2,41-51) pointed to a deeply veiled mystery, discussed in “The Nativity.” The clear identification here in the New Testament of this youth as a Widow’s Son points toward the later Mani, who identifies himself as such. What Steiner says in the two quoted passages from TL at the outset of this discussion shows the exalted status of the Individuality here involved, if it is, as indicated, that of Mani and Manu.

Before leaving the scriptural evidence, we should note the implications of the term “fatherless.” The very fact of specifying this suggests that one so described (at least when identified as a male child) is a Widow’s Son, else one would be identified as an “orphan.” It must suffice here to point out passages that speak, always presumably with deep meaning, of the “fatherless,” namely: Ex 22,24; Deut 10,18; 14,29; 16,11,14; 24,17-21; 26,12-13; 27,19; Job 5,15; 6,27; 22,9; 24,3,9; 29,12; 31,17,21; Ps 10,14,18; 68,5; 82,3; 94,6; 146,9; Prov 23,10; Is 1,17,23; 9,17; 10,2; Jer 5,28; 7,6; 22,3; 49,11; Ezek 22,7; and Zech 7,10. We see also, in “The Nativity” that Jesus was “fatherless” long before he began his ministry, and that he committed his otherwise unattended mother to John from the Cross (Jn 19,25-27). And we are also told by Steiner that Zechariah, father of John the Baptist, a Widow’s Son in the Naboth/Elijah incarnation, was slain by Herod. That these were real life situations does not detract from the probability that they reflected a deeper spiritual reality. Similarly, many spiritually exalted personalities have lost their fathers at a very early age, a curious fact which the reader may have observed.