The lectures on the Fifth Gospel given in various places in 1913 and 1914 occupy a very special place for spiritual research. Rudolf Steiner himself described the effort it took for him to speak about this material. He did so out of a deep sense of responsibility toward preparations required in our time, and in his awareness of the great necessity for these facts to infuse the development of the world at this very moment.

Of the eighteen lectures delivered in 1913 and 1914, only translations of the first five in Oslo and the last two in Cologne are offered here. The rest of the lectures contained in GA 148 are repetitions of what is covered in these seven lectures - the beginning and the end, so to speak.