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ico
ICD
/GNOSTIC \
CRUCIFIXION
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ECHOES"
FROM
THE
GNOSiS
BY
G.R.S.
MEAD
vri.vil
BT
1390
.M44
1906
v. 7
c. 1
ROBARTS
THE . . .
GNOSTIC
CRUCI- .
FIXION.
WORKS BY THE SAME
AUTHOR
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ECHOES BY
FROM G R. S.
THE MEAD
GNOSIS VOL. VII.
THE
GNOSTIC
CRUCI
FIXION
LONDON
THEOSOPHICAL AND
PUBLISHING BENARES
SOCIETY 1907
ECHOES FROM THE
GNOSIS.
Under this general title is now being published
a series of small volumes, drawn from, or based
upon, the mystic, theosophic and gnostic writings
of the ancients, so as to make more easily audible
for the ever-widening circle of those who love such
things, some echoes of the mystic experiences and
initiatory lore of their spiritual ancestry. There
are many who love the life of the spirit, and who
long for the light of gnostic illumination, but who
are not sufficiently equipped to study the writings
of the ancients at first hand, or to follow un
aided the labours of scholars. These little volumes
are therefore intended to serve as introduction
to the study of the more difficult literature of the
subject ; and it is hoped that at the same time
they may become for some, who have, as yet, not
even heard of the Gnosis, stepping-stones to
higher things.
G. R. S. M.
THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 9
THE VISION OF THE CROSS 12
COMMENTS 20
POSTCRIPT . 69
TEXTS
Bonnet (M.), Ada Apostolorum Apocrypha (Leipzig,
1898).
James (M. R.), Apocrypha Anecdota, T. &> S., v. i.
(Cambridge, 1897).
F. = Fragments o/ a Faith Forgotten, 2nd. ed.
(London, 1906).
H. = Thrice Greatest Hermes (London, 1906).
ECHOES FROM THE
GNOSIS
Voi,. I. THE GNOSIS OF THE MIND.
Voi,. II. THB HYMNS OP HERMES.
Voi,. III. THE VISION OF ARID^US.
Voi,. IV. THE HYMN OF JESUS.
Voi,. V. THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA.
Voi,. VI. A MITHRIAC RITUAL.
Voi,. VII. THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION.
SOME PROPOSED SUBJECTS
FOR
FORTHCOMING VOLUMES
THE CHALDEAN ORACLES.
THE HYMN OF THE PRODIGAL.
SOME ORPHIC FRAGMENTS.
THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION.
PREFACE.
The Gnostic Mystery of the Crucifixion
is most clearly set forth in the new-found
fragments of The Acts of John, and
follows immediately on the Sacred Dance
and Ritual of Initiation which we en
deavoured to elucidate in Vol. IV. of these
little books, in treating of The Hymn
of Jesus.
The reader is, therefore, referred to
the " Preamble " of that volume for a
short introduction concerning the nature
of the Gnostic Acts in general and of the
Leucian Acts of John in particular. I
would, however, add a point of interest
bearing on the date which was forgotten,
though I have frequently remarked upon
it when lecturing on the subject.
THE The strongest proof that we have in
CRua- C our fragment very early material is found
Fixioii. in the text itself, when it relates the
following simple form of the miracle of
the loaves.
" Now if at any time He were invited
by one of the Pharisees and went to the
bidding, we used to go with Him. And
before each was set a single loaf by the
host ; and of them He Himself also
received one. Then He would give thanks
and divide His loaf among us ; and from
this little each had enough, and our own
loaves were saved whole, so that those
who bade Him were amazed."
If the marvellous narratives of the
feeding of the five thousand had been
already in circulation, it is incredible
that this simple story, which we may so
easily believe, should have been invented.
Of what use, when the minds of the
hearers had been strung to the pitch of
faith which had already accepted the
feeding of the five thousand as an actual
physical occurrence, would it have been
10
to invent comparatively so small a QHQ STI
wonder ? On the other hand, it is easy CRUCI-
to believe that from similar simple stories FIXION.
of the power of the Master, which were
first of all circulated in the inner circles,
the popular narratives of the multitude-
feeding miracles could be developed.
We, therefore, conclude, with every pro
bability, that we have here an indication
of material of very early date.
Nevertheless when we come to the
Mystery of the Crucifixion as set forth
in our fragment, we are not entitled to
argue that the popular history was
developed from it in a similar fashion.
The problem it raises is of another order,
and to it we will return when the reader
has been put in possession of the narra
tive, as translated from Bonnet s text.
John is supposed to be the narrator.
(The Arabic figures and the Roman
figures in square brackets refer respec
tively to Bonnet s and James texts. I
have added the side figures for con
venience of reference in the comments.)
ii
THE VISION OF THE CROSS.
THE i. [97 (xii.)] And having danced these
CRUCi- thin s with us > Beloved, the Lord
FIXION. went out. And we, as though beside
ourselves, or wakened out of sleep,
fled each our several ways.
2. I, however, though I saw the begin
ning of His passion could not stay
to the end, but fled unto the Mount
of Olives weeping over that which
had befallen.
3. And when He was hung on the tree
of the cross, at the sixth hour of the
day darkness came over the whole
earth.
And my Lord stood in the midst of
the Cave, and filled it with light,
and said :
4. " John, to the multitude below, in
Jerusalem, I am being crucified,
12
and pierced with spears and reeds,
and vinegar and gall is being given CRUCI-
Me to drink. To thee now I speak, FIXION.
and give ear to what I say. Twas
I who put it in thy heart to ascend
this Mount, that thou mightest hear
what disciple should learn from
Master, and man from God."
5. [98 (xiii.)] And having thus spoken, He
showed me a Cross of Light set up,
and round the Cross a vast multitude,
and therein one form and a similar
appearance, and in the Cross another
multitude not having one form.
6. And I beheld the Lord Himself above
the Cross. He had, however, no
shape, but only as it were a voice-
not, however, this voice to which
we are accustomed, but one of its
own kind and beneficent and truly
of God, saying unto me :
7. " John, one there needs must be to
hear those things, from Me ; for
I long for one who will hear.
8. " This Cross of Light is called by Me
13
E s for your sakes sometimes Word
CRUCI- (Lg s )> sometimes Mind, sometimes
FIXION. Jesus, sometimes Christ, sometimes
Door, sometimes Way, sometimes
Bread, sometimes Seed, sometimes
Resurrection, sometimes Son, some
times Father, sometimes Spirit, some
times Life, sometimes Truth, some
times Faith, sometimes Grace.
9. " Now those things [it is called] as
towards men ; but as to what it is
in truth, itself in its own meaning
to itself, and declared unto Us,
[it is] the defining (or delimitation)
of all things, both the firm necessity
of things fixed from things unstable,
and the harmony of Wisdom.
10. " And as it is Wisdom in harmony,
there are those on the Right and
those on the Left powers, authori
ties, principalities, and daemons,
energies, threats, powers of wrath,
slanderings and the Lower Root
from which hath come forth the
things in genesis.
14
ii [99]- "This, then, is the Cross which THE
by the Word (Logos) hath been CRUCI-
the means of cross-beaming all FIXION.
things at the same time separating
off the things that proceed from
genesis and those below it [from those
above], and also compacting them
all into one.
12. " But this is not the cross of wood
which thou shalt see when thou
descendest hence ; nor am I he that
is upon the cross [I] whom now
thou seest not, but only hearest a
voice.
13. " I was held [to be] what I am not,
not being what I was to many others ;
nay, they will call Me something
else, abject and not worthy of Me.
As, then, the Place of Rest is neither
seen nor spoken of, much more shall
I, the Lord of it, be neither seen
[nor spoken of].
14. [100 (xiv.)] " Now the multitude of
one appearance round the Cross is
the Lower Nature. And as to those
15
THE whom thou seest in the Cross, if
CRUCI- tnev nave not a ^ so one f rm > [it is
FIXION. because] the whole Race (or every
Limb) of Him who descended hath
not yet been gathered together.
15. " But when the Upper Nature, yea,
the Race that is coming unto
Me, in obedience to My Voice, is
taken up, then thou who now heark-
enest to Me, shalt become it, and it
shall no longer be what it is now,
but above them as I am now.
16. " For so long as thou callest not
thyself Mine, I am not what I am.
But if thou hearkenest unto Me,
hearing, thou, too, shalt be as I
[am], and I shall be what I was,
when thou [art] as I am with My
self ; for from this thou art.
17. " Pay no attention, then, to the
many, and them that are without
the mystery think little of ; for
know that I am wholly with the
Father and the Father with Me.
18. [101 (xv.)] " Nothing, then, of the
16
things which they will say of Me have
I suffered ; nay that Passion as well CRUCI-
which I showed unto thee and the FIXION.
rest, by dancing [it], I will that it
be called a mystery.
19. " What thou art, thou seest ; this
did I show unto thee. But what I
am, this I alone know, [and] none
else.
20. " What, then, is Mine suffer Me to
keep ; but what is thine see thou
through Me. To see Me as I really
am I said is not possible, but only
what thou art able to recognise, as
being kin [to Me] (or of the same
Race).
21. "Thou hearest that I suffered; yet
I did not suffer : that I suffered not ;
yet I did suffer : that I was pierced;
yet was I not smitten : that I was
hanged ; yet I was not hanged :
that blood flowed from me ; yet it
did not flow : and in a word the
things they say about Me I had not,
and the things they do not say those I
THE suffered. Now what they are I will
?nr? IC riddle for thee ; for I know that thou
l/KUvl- n
FIXION. wilt understand.
22. " Understand, therefore, in Me, the
slaying of a Word (Logos), the
piercing of a Word, the blood of a
Word, the wounding of a Word, the
hanging of a Word, the passion of a
Word, the nailing (or putting to
gether) of a Word, the death of a
Word.
23. "And thus I speak separating off
the man. First, then, understand
the Word, then shalt thou under
stand the Lord, and in the third
place [only] the man and what he
suffered."
24. [102 (xvi.)] And having said these
things to me, and others which I
know not how to say as He Himself
would have it, He was taken up, no
one of the multitude beholding Him.
25. And when I descended I laughed
at them all, when they told Me what
they did concerning Him, firmly
18
possessed in myself of this [truth] ISJL Tir
only, that the Lord contrived all CRUCI-
things symbolically, and according FIXION.
to [His] dispensation for the conver
sion and salvation of man.
COMMENTS,
THE The translation is frequently a matter
CRUCI- f difficulty, for the text has been copied
FIXION. in a most careless and unintelligent
fashion, so that the ingenuity of the
editors has often been taxed to the
utmost and has not infrequently com
pletely broken down. It is of course
quite natural that orthodox scribes should
blunder when transcribing Gnostic docu
ments, owing to their ignorance of the
subject and their strangeness to the
ideas ; but this particular copyist is
at times quite barbarous, and as the
subject is deeply mystical and deals with
the unexpected, the reconstruction of
the original reading is a matter of great
difficulty. With a number of passages
I am still unsatisfied, though I hope they
are somewhat nearer the spirit of the
20
original than other reconstructions which
have been attempted. CRUCI-
It is always a matter of difficulty for FIXION.
the rigidly objective mind to understand
the point of view of the Gnostic scripture-
writers. One thing, however, is certain :
they lived in times when the rigid ortho
doxy of the canon was not yet established.
They were in the closest touch with the
living tradition of scripture-writing, and
they knew the manner of it.
The probability is that paragraphs
i 3 are from the pen of the redactor or
compiler of the Acts, and that the narra
tive, beginning with the words " And
my Lord stood in the midst of the Cave,"
is incorporated from prior material a
mystic vision or apocalypse circulated
in the inner circles.
The compiler knows the general Gospel-
story, and seems prepared to admit its
historical basis ; at the same time he
knows well that the story circulated
among the people is but the outer veil of
the mystery, and so he hands on what
B 21
GNOSTIC We ma y W6 ^ ^ e ^ eve was k ut one f
CRUCI- many visions of the mystic crucifixion.
FixiON. The gentle contempt of those who had
entered into the mystery, for those un
knowing ones who would fain limit the
crucifixion to one brief historic event,
is brought out strongly, and savours,
though mildly, of the bitterness of the
struggle between the two great forces
of the inner and spiritualizing and the
outer and materializing traditions.
1. The disciples flee after beholding
the inner mystery of the Passion and
At-one-ment as set forth in the initiating
drama of the Mystic Dance which formed
the subject of our fourth volume.
2. Yet even John the Beloved, in spite
of this initiation, cannot yet bear the
thought that his Master did actually
suffer historically as a malefactor on
the physical cross. In his distress he
flees unto the Mount of Olives, above
Jerusalem.
But to the Gnostic the Mount of Olives
was no physical hill, though it was a
22
mount in the physical, and Jerusalem no THE
physical city, though a city in the physical. CHUCK
The Mount, however it might be dis- FIXION.
tinguished locally, was the Height of
Contemplation, and the bringing into
activity of a certain inner consciousness;
even as Jerusalem here was the Jerusalem
below, the physical consciousness.
3. The sentence " when He was hung
on the tree of the Cross " contains a
great puzzle. The word for " tree " in
the original is batos ; this may mean the
"bush" or "tree" of the cross. But
the Cross for the Gnostics was a living
symbol. It was not only the cross of
dead wood, or the dead trunk of a tree
lopped of its branches a symbol of
Osiris in death ; it was also the Tree of
Life, and was equated with the " Fiery
Bush " out of which the Angel of God
spake to Moses that is the Tree of Fiery
Life, in the Paradise of man s inner
nature, whence the Word of God expresses
itself to one who is worthy to hear.
And this Tree of Life was also, as the
23
GNOSTIC Cro9S > tne Tree * Knowledge of Good
CRUCI- an d Evil ; indeed, both are but one
FIXION. Tree, for the fruit of the Tree of Life is
the knowledge of good and evil, the cross
of the opposites.
But seeing that the word batos in
Greek had also another meaning, the
Gnostics, by their method of mystical
word-play, based on the power of sound,
brought this further meaning into use
for the expansion of the idea. The
difference of accentuation and of gender
(though the reading of the Septuagint is
masculine and not feminine as is usual
with batos in the sense of bush or tree)
presented no difficulty to the word-
alchemy of these allegorists.
Hippolytus, in his Refutation of all
Heretics, attempts to summarize a sys
tem of the Christianized Gnosis which
is assigned to the Docetse ; and Docetism
is precisely the chief characteristic of
our Acts of John, as we have already
pointed out in Vol. IV. In this unsym
pathetic summary there is a passage
24
which throws some light on our puzzle. THE
It would, of course, require a detailed CRUC?- C
analysis of our haeresiologist s " refuta- FIXION.
tion " of the Docetic system to make
the passage to which we refer (op. oil.,
viii., 9) fully comprehensible ; but as
this would be too lengthy an under
taking for these short comments, we must
content ourselves with a bald statement.
The pure spiritual emanations or ideas
or intelligences of the Light descend into
the lowest Darkness of matter. For the
moulding of vehicles or bodies for them
it is necessary to call in the aid of the
God of Fire, the creative or rather forma
tive Power, who is " Living Fire be
gotten of Light."
Hippolytus summarizes, doubtless im
perfectly, from the Docetic document that
lay before him, as follows :
" Moses refers to this God as the
Fiery God who spake from the Batos,
that is to say, from the Dark Air ; for
Batos is aU the Air subjected to Dark
ness."
GNOSTIC ^at * s> P resuma bty> t* 16 ma terial Air,
CRUCI- Air of the Darkness, as compared with
FIXION. the spiritual Air or Air of the Light.
The Docetic writer, Hippolytus says,
explained the use of the term as follows :
" Moses called it Batos, because, in
their passing from Above, Below, all the
Ideas of the Light [that is, the Light-
sparks or spirits of men] used the Air as
their means of passage (batos)"
In other words Batos, as Air, was the
link between Light and Darkness, which
Darkness was regarded as essentially a
flowing or Watery chaos. The Batos
was the Way Down and the Way Up of
souls.
We are not, however, to suppose that
the origin of this idea was the text of
Exodus. By no means ; the idea came
first, indeed was fundamental with the
Gnosis ; the mystic exegesis of the " burn
ing bush" passage was an exercise in
ingenuity. For the Gnosis, the that
which at once separated and united the
Light and the Darkness was the Cross.
26
The Angel of God speaking to Moses I9JL TTr
out of the Fiery Batos was for the CRUCI-
Christian Gnostics one of the most strik- FIXION.
ing apocalypses of ancient Jewish
scripture ; and it was primarily one of
the chief functions of the Gnosis to throw
light on the under-meaning. This the
Docetic exegete does in his own fashion,
using the reading of the Greek Targum
or Translation of the Seventy, in this
wise : " Batos ? Batos does not mean
4 bush really, but medium of trans
mission, It is by means of this that
the Word of God comes unto us namely,
by the mystery of the uniter-separator
in one, which was called by many
names.
For instance, in setting forth the
Sophia-mythus, or Wisdom-story, or mys
tery of cosmogenesis, of the Valentinian
school, Hippolytus (op. cit., vi. 3), treats
of the Cross as the final mystery of all.
With original documents before him, he
writes :
" Now it is called Boundary, because
27
THE it bounds off the Deficiency from the
CRUCI- Fullness [so as to make it] exterior to it ;
FIXION. it is called Partaker because it partakes
of the Deficiency as well ; and it is called
Cross (or Stock) because it hath been
fixed immovably and unchangeably,
so that nothing of the Deficiency should
be able to approach the eternities within
the Fullness."
Here it is useless to tie oneself to the
physical symbol of a cross. The Stauros
(Cross) in its true self is a living idea, a
reality or root-principle. It is the prin
ciple of separation and limit, dividing
entity from non-entity, being from non-
being, perfection from imperfection, full
ness or sufficiency from deficiency or
insufficiency Light from Darkness. It
is the that which causes all opposites.
At the same time it shares in all opposites,
for it is the immediate emanation of the
Father Himself, and therefore unites
while separating. It is, therefore, the
principle of participation or sharing in,
sharing in both the Fullness and the
28
Deficiency. Finally, it is the Stock or THE
Pillar as that which " has stood, stands CRUCI
and will stand " the principle of im- FIXION.
mobility, as the energy of the Father
in His aspect of the supreme Individuality
that changes not, because he is Lord of
the ever-changing.
That such a master-idea is difficult to
grasp goes without saying ; it was con
fessedly the supreme mystery. From it
the mind, the formal mind of man, "falls
back unable to grasp it "; for it is pre
cisely this personal mind that creates
duality, and insinuates itself between
cause and effect. The spiritual Mind
alone can embrace the opposites.
But to return to our text. " When
He was hung on the batos of the Cross "
when He had reached the state of
balance, was in the mystic centre then
at the sixth hour, that is mid-day, when
there was greatest light, there was also
greatest darkness.
And then when the Lord, the Higher
Self of the man, was balanced and
29
J ustmeci > tne man, the disciple, became
conscious, in the cave of his heart that
is to say, in his inmost substantial nature
of the Presence of Light.
4. Thereon follow the illumination and
the explanation of the familiar drama
of appearance taught to those " without
the mystery."
" The multitude below in Jerusalem "
is the lower nature of the man, his un-
illumined mind. " Jerusalem Below " is
set over against " Jerusalem Above,"
the City of God. Jerusalem Below is
that nature in him that is still unordered
and unpurified ; while Jerusalem Above
is that ordered and purified portion of
his substance that can respond to the
immediate shining of the Light, which
further orders it according to the Ordering
of Heaven.
And yet the drama below is real enough ;
there are ever crucifixion and piercing
and the drinking of vinegar and gall,
before the triumphant Christ is born.
It is by such means that His Body is
30
conformed ; it is the mystery of the
transformation of what we call evil into
good. The Body of the Christ is per
fected by the absorption of the impersonal
evil of the world, which He transmutes
into blessing.
" Twas I who put it in thy heart to
ascend this Mount." I am thy Self, thy
true God ; twas I energizing in thee who
enabled thee to rise to the height of
contemplation, where thou canst " hear
what disciple should learn from Master
and man from God." The man has now
reached the stage of Hearer in the Spiritual
Mysteries.
5. There then follows the vision of the
great Cross of Light, fixed firm, and
stretching from earth to heaven. Round
its foot on earth is a vast multitude of
all the nations of the world ; they
resemble one another in that they are
configured according to the Darkness,
their " Spark burns low." On the Cross,
or in it, for doubtless the seer saw within
as well as without, was another multitude
THE of various grades of light, being formed
CRUc7- IC into some marvellous Image like unto
FIXION. the Divine, but not yet completed as it
might be the Rose on the Cross, in the
famous symbol of the Rosier ucians.
6. And above the Cross, lost in the
dazzling brilliancy of the Fullness, John
beheld the Lord ; he beheld but could
not see, because of the Great Light, as
we are told in another great vision of the
Master in the Pistis Sophia. He can
hear only a Voice. But this Voice is no
voice of man, but one " truly of God "
a Bath-kol or " Heavenly Voice," as
the Rabbis called it a Voice of sweetest
reasonableness, using no words, but of a
higher order of utterance, that can make
the man speak to himself in his own
language, using his own terms.
7. The sentence " I long for one who
will hear," is instinct with the yearning
of the Divine Love, the eagerness to
bestow, the longing to speak if only there
be one to hear.
8. There then follows a list of synonyms
32
of the Cross, every one of which shows "J STI
that the Cross, if a symbol, must C RUCI-
be taken to denote the master-symbol FIXION.
of all symbols. It is the key to the
chief nomenclature of the Gnosis and
the greatest terms of the Gospel. These
terms, it is stated, are used by the Wisdom
" for your sakes," that is, to bring home
in many ways to the hearts of men the
intuition of the mystery.
As is explained later on in the text,
the mystery of the Cross is the mystery
of the Word, the Spiritual Man, or Great
Man, the Divine Individuality. There
fore is it called Word or Reason, Mind,
Jesus and Christ, Son and Father ; for
Jesus is the Christ, both as human and
divine, the two natures uniting in one
in the Cross ; and the Son is the Father
in a still more divine meaning of the
mystery ; for both Son and Cross are
of the Father alone, they are Himself
manifesting Himself to Himself. The
whole is the mystery of Atman or the
Self.
33
THE The Door is the Door of the Two in
CRUC One > the state of e q uilibrium of the
FIXION. opposites which opens out into the all-
embracing consciousness and understand
ing of all oppositions.
The Cross is the Way on which there
is no travelling, for it perpetually enters
into itself ; it is the true Meth-od, not so
much in the sense of the Way-bet ween
or the Medium or Mediator, as in the
sense of the Means of Gnosis.
It is also called Seed because it is the
mystery of the power of growth and
development ; it is self -initiative.
And if the Cross be Son and Father in
separation and union, or as simultaneously
Cause and Result, it is likewise Spirit
or Atman, and therefore Life.
It is also Truth or the Perpetual
Paradox, distinguishing and uniting in
itself all pros and cons, and all analysis
and synthesis in simultaneous operation.
Therefore also is it called Faith, be
cause it is the that which is stable and
unchanging amid perpetual change.
34
Faith in its true mystic meaning seems Q"Q STI
to denote the power of withdrawing the CRUCI-
personal consciousness from between the FIXION.
pairs of opposites, where these appear
external and other than oneself, and
embracing the opposites within the
greater consciousness, when they are
within oneself and appear as natural
processes in the great economy.
Faith is of the contemplative mind ;
it embraces, it includes. It is therefore
of the Great Mother, as the life and sub
stance of the Cross ; so also is it of
Grace, elsewhere called Wisdom.
Finally, the Cross regarded from this
point of view is called Bread, the sub
stance of Life.
In a remarkable paper in The Theo-
sophical Review, Nov., 1907, E. R. Irines
speaks of a vision of a great drama of
those Powers beyond the mind-spheres,
which in the Indian scriptures are called
Food and Eater that is to say, the
mystical union between the Not-self
and the Self.
35
GNOSTIC * n t ^ le Chh&ndogyopani$had t for in-
CRUCI- stance, we read of one who had passed
FIXION. into the heaven-world possessing a know
ledge of the identity of the Self and
Not-self. The transformations of his
vehicles that thus occur in the inner
states or worlds become as it were pro
cesses of natural digestion in his Great
Body, for we read :
" Having what food he wills, what form
he wills, this song he singing sits :
" O wonder, wonder, wonder !
Food I ; food I ; food I !
Food-eater I ; food-eater I ; food-
eater I !
(See my World-Mystery, 2nd ed., p. 179.)
Our author in similar fashion writes
of a soul watching the processes of its
own substance in the heaven-world.
" She watched the interaction of those
two great currents of the One Great Life-
Force the Life-Force as Supporter, the
Life-Force as Sustainer. She watched
the great transfiguration of the crossing
over of the surface-forms as life met life
36
in perfect mystic union. As the cur- THE
rents crossed the forms changed but GN S TIC
without loss of life or consciousness! gg&
The Powers crossed and recrossed ; and
with each appearance of that sacred
symbol there was further expansion and
intensification of the Life-Force. At each
piercing or insinuation of the one into
the other, that which had been two
became one, yet there still remained the
two She watched the great mystery
that Cross on which the Heavenly
Man dies in order to live again.
" In heaven you do not demolish forms
in order to sustain life, you daily insinuate
yourself into all the forms you meet, and
thus by supplying them with food, the
food of your own greater life, you become
each separate object, and gain in power
and expansiveness. Thus in heaven by
sacrifice do you grow and live, and
slowly become the world. Thus in heaven
do you give life to others in order to live
yourself; thus do the many rebecome
the One. The Great Mystery of the
c 37
THE Bread of Life which must be partaken
CRUcT- C of b Y a11 before the Da y of Triumph was
FIXION. acted out before her eyes."
And it might be added that as heaven
is a state and not a place, the mystery
can be consummated on earth, and that
this is the true sacrifice of the Christ and
the Way to become a Christ.
9. Ideas of this or a similar order may
be held not rashly to underlie the words
of our text. The Cross of Life may well
be called the Harmony or articulation,
or joining-together of Wisdom, for it
is by means of Wisdom that all the
contraries are joined together, and this
Articulation constitutes the firm neces
sity " of Fate, which was also called in
the Gnostic schools the Harmony. And
if it is a Cross of Life, it is also a Cross of
Light, for Life and Light are the eternally
united twin-natures, female and male, of
the Logos, the Good. Life is Passion
and Light is Understanding. The Logos
divides Himself to experience and know
Himself.
38
TO. All opposites unite in Wisdom as a JSosTi
ground ; she is the pure substance in CRUCI-
which all the powers play. It is only FIXION.
when the Cross is regarded as a separator,
that it may be said to have a right and
a left, with good forces on the one hand
and evil on the other. The forces are
in reality in themselves the same forces ;
it is the personality of the man (repre
sented by the upright of the Cross), which
refers all things to its incomplete self,
that regards them as good and evil.
This personality is rooted in the Lower
Root or lower nature, and stretches
upward towards the Above.
But in reality there are roots above
and branches below, or roots below and
branches above, of the trunk of this Tree
of Life and Light. Though the nomen
clature is somewhat different, I cannot
refrain from quoting a striking passage
from a Gnostic scripture to give the
reader some idea of the lofty region of
thought to which the Gnosis accustomed
its disciples.
39
THE It is taken from The Great Announce-
CRUCI- C men t> a document ascribed by Hippolytus
FIXION. to the very beginning of the Christianized
Gnosis. Strong efforts have been made
to question this ascription, and to prove
the document to be of a later date, but
I think I have established a high pro
bability that it may be even a pre-
Christian writing (see H., i. 184).
The text is to be found in Hippolytus
Refutation of all Heresies (vi., 18) :
" To you, therefore, I say what I say
and write what I write. And the writing
is this :
" Of the universal ^Eons (Eternities)
there are two Branchings, without be
ginning or end, from one Root, which is
the Power unseeable, incomprehensible
Silence.
" Of these Branchings one is mani
fested from Above the Great Power,
Mind of the universals, ordering all
things, male ; and the other from Below-
Great Thought, female, generating all
things.
40
;< Thence partnering one another they THE
pair (lit. have union syzygia), and bring cRUcI-
into manifestation the Middle Distance, FIXION.
incomprehensible Air without beginning
or end.
" In this is that Father, who supports
and nourishes the things which have
beginning and end.
This is He who has stood, stands
and shall stand a male-female Power in
accordance with the transcendent Bound
less Power, which hath neither beginning
nor end, subsisting in onlyness.
" It was by emanating from this Power
(set., Incomprehensible Silence) that
Thought-in-onlyness became two.
Yet was He, (the Supernal Father)
one ; for having her (set. Thought) in
Himself He was alone [that is, all-one,
or only, that is one-ly]. He was not,
however, [in this state] first, although
transcendent ; it was only in manifesting
Himself from Himself that He became
second [that is to say, as He who
stands]. Nay, He was not even called
THE Father till Thought named Him
FIXION. "As, therefore, Himself pro-ducmg
Himself by means of Himself, He mani
fested to Himself His own Thought ;
so also His Thought on manifesting did
not make [Him], but beholding Him,
she concealed the Father, that is the
Power, in Herself, and is [thus] male-
female, Power and Thought.
"Thence is it that they partner one
another (for Power in no way differs from
Thought) and yet are one. From the
things Above is discovered Power, and
from those Below Thought.
"So is it, too, with that which is
manifested from them ; namely, that
though it (sci. the Middle Distance, In
comprehensible Air) is one, it is found
to be two, male-female, having the
female in itself.
" Thus is Mind in Thought inseparable
from one another, which though one are
yet found to be two."
I believe that our Vision of the Cross
42
sets forth in living symbol precisely what "OSTI
is explained above in more " abstract " CRUCI-
terms. It would, however, be a mistake FIXION.
to make abstractions of these sublime
ideas ; they must be realized as full
nesses, as transcendent realities. The
Air, the Batos, the Middle Distance, is
the manifestation, or thinking-manifest,
of the Divine to Itself, the true meaning
of md-yd. (See the Trismegistic Sermon,
" Though Unmanifest God is most Mani
fest," and the commentary, H. t ii., 99-109).
ii. I have translated the term SiaTrrjg-
dfjievos by "cross-beaming," for Siairvyiov
is a "cross-beam "; and I would refer the
reader to the famous myth of Plato
known as " The Vision of Er," where the
same idea is set forth when we read :
" There they saw the extremities of
the Boundaries of the Heaven, extended
in the midst of the Light ; for this Light
was the final Boundary of Heaven
somewhat like the undergirdings of ships
and thus confined its whole revolution."
(See H., i., 440.)
43
GNOSTIC s " cross-beaming " or operation of
CRUCI- tne Cross is the mode of the energizing
FIXION. of the Logos. It is the simultaneous
separating and joining of the generable
and the ingenerable, the two modes of
the Self-generable ; it is the link between
personal and impersonal, bound and free,
finite and infinite. It is the instrument
of creation, male-female in one.
12. There is little surprise, therefore,
in learning that this mystery is not the
" cross of wood " which the disciple will
see and has seen in the pictures framed
by his lower mind, when reading the
historicized narrative of the mystery-
drama or hearing the great story. Nor
is it to be imagined that the Lord could
be hung upon such a cross of wood,
seeing that He is crucified in all men
He whom even the disciple in con
templation cannot see as He is, but can
only hear the Wisdom of His Voice.
13. " I was held to be what I am not."
As to what the many say concerning the
mystery, they speak as the many vain
44
and contradictory opinions. Nay, even
those who believed in Him have not
understood ; they have been content
with a poor and unworthy conception
of the mystery.
The teaching seems to be that as the
Christ-story was intended to be the
setting-forth of an exemplar of what
perfected man might be namely, that
the path was fully opened for him all the
way up to God it was spiritual suicide
to rest content with a limited and pre
judiced view. Every mould of thought
was to be broken, every imperfect con
ception was to be transcended, if there
was to be realization.
For those who cling to the outward
forms and symbols the Place of Rest
is neither seen nor spoken of. This
Place of Rest, this Home of Peace, is
in reality the very Cross itself, the Firm
Foundation, the that on which the whole
creation rests. And if the Place of Rest,
where all things cross, and unite, the
Mystic Centre of the whole system, which
45
THE i s everywhere, is not seen or spoken of,
CRUC "much more shall the Lord of it be
FIXION. neither seen nor spoken of " He who has
the power of the Centre, who can adjust
His "centre of gravity" at every moment
of time, and therewith the attitude of
this Great Body or, if it be preferred, of
his Mind, and thus be in perpetual balance,
as the Justified and the Just One.
14. The interpretation of the Vision
that follows in the text may in its turn
be interpreted from several standpoints.
It may be regarded cosmicly according
to the restauratio omnium, when the
whole creation becomes the object of the
Great Mercy, as Basilides calls it ; or
it may be taken soteriologically as refer
ring to the salvation or the making safe
or sure of our humanity, or it may be
referred to the perfection of the individual
man.
The multitude of one appearance are
the Earth-bound, the Hylics as the
Gnostics called them ; that is, those who
are immersed in things of matter, the
46
"delights of the world." They are the
Dead, because they are under the sway
of birth-and-death, the spheres of Fate.
They have not yet "risen from the
Dead," and consciously ascended the
Cross of Light and Life.
Thus in the preface to The Book of the
Gnoses of the Invisible God, that is to say,
"The Book of the Gnosis of Jesus the
Living One " which begins with the
beautiful words : "I have loved you and
longed to give you Life" we read the
following Saying of the Lord :
" Jesus saith : Blessed is the man who
crucifieth the world, and doth not let
the world crucify him."
And later on the mystery is set forth
in another Saying :
" Jesus saith : Blessed is the man who
knoweth this Word, and hath brought
down the Heaven, and borne the Earth
and raised it heavenwards ; and he
becometh the Midst, for it (the Midst) is
a nothing." (F., 518, 519.)
Those who have become spiritual,
47
GNOSTIC W ^ ^ aV6 " r * Sen * r m ^ e ^ eac ^" are
CRUCI- born into the Race of the Logos, they
FIXION. become kin with Him.
Of this Race much has been written
by the mystics of the many different
schools of these early days.
Thus the Jewish Gnostic commentator
of the Naassene Document writes :
" One is the Nature Below which is
subject to Death ; and one is the Race
without a king [that is, those who are
kings of themselves] which is born Above "
(#., i., 164.).
And the Christian Gnostic commentator
refers to the " ineffable Race of perfect
men " (H., i., 166), who are in the Logos.
Such illuminati were called by one
tradition of the Christianized Gnosis the
Race of Elxai, the Hidden Power or Holy
Spirit, the Spouse of lexai, the Hidden
Lord or Logos. (H.. ii., 242 ; see my
Did Jesus live 100 B.C. ? chap, xviii.)
Philo of Alexandria tells us that
" Wisdom, who, after the fashion of a
mother, brings forth the self-taught Race,
declares that God is the Sower of it " I5!L TTr
(#., i., 220). This is the term he applies CRUCI-
to his beloved Therapeuts, adding that FIXION.
" this Race is rare and found with
difficulty."
Elsewhere he tells us that the angels
are the " people " of God ; but there is
a still higher degree of union, whereby a
man becomes one of the Race, or Kin,
of God. This Race is an intimate union
of all them who are " kin to Him ";
they become one. For this Race " is
one, the highest one ; but people is
the name of many."
" As many, then, as have advanced
in discipline and instruction, and been
perfected therein, have their lot among
this many.
" But they who have passed beyond
these introductory exercises, becoming
natural disciples of God, receiving Wisdom
free from all toil, migrate to this incor
ruptible and perfect Race, receiving a
lot superior to their former lives in
genesis" (//., i., 554.)
49
THE And so in one of the Hymns of Thrice
CRUCI- Greatest Hermes, after the triple trisagion,
FIXION. the " Hermes " or Illuminated prays :
" And fill me with Thy Power and with
this Grace of Thine, that I may give the
Light to those in ignorance of the Race
my Brethren and Thy Sons." (H., ii.,
20.).
Philo calls it " self-taught," just as the
Buddhists speak of the Arhats as asekha ;
and the Trismegistic teacher writes :
" This Race, my sons, is never taught ;
but when He willeth it, its memory is
restored by God." (H., ii., 221.)
The " Elect Race " of Valentinus is the
"Sonship" of Basilides that incarnates on
earth for the abolition of Death. (F. t 303.)
In the Pistis Sophia document, the
Sophia, or the soul turning towards the
Light, first utters seven repentances,
or " turnings-of-the-mind," or rather
of the whole nature. At the fourth of
these, the turning-point of some sub-
cycle of the great Return, she prays that
the Image of the Light may not be turned
or averted from her, for the time is come THE
when "those who turn in the lowest cRUCi
regions " should be regarded " the FIXION.
mystery which is made the type of the
Race." (F., 471.)
Again in the introduction to The Book
of the Great Logos according to the Mystery,
the disciples beg the Master to explain
the Mystery of the Word. Jesus answers
that the Life of His Father consists in
their purifying their souls from all earthly
stain, and making them to become the
Race of the Mind, so that they may be
filled with understanding and by His
teaching perfect themselves. (F., 528.)
Finally in the marvellous Untiiled Apo
calypse of the Bruce Codex we read :
; These words said the Lord of the
Universe to them, and disappeared from
them, and hid Himself from them.
" And the Births-of -matter rejoiced
that they had been remembered, and
were glad that they had come out of the
narrow and difficult place, and prayed
to the Hidden Mystery :
THE Give us authority that we may
CRua- IC create f r ourselves aeons and worlds
FIXION. according to Thy Word, upon which
Thou didst agree with Thy servant ;
for Thou alone art the changeless One,
Thou alone the boundless, the uncontain-
able, self-taught, self -born Self -father ;
Thou alone art the unshakeable and
unknowable ; Thou alone art Silence and
Love, and Source of all ; Thou alone art
virgin of matter, spotless ; whose Race
no man can tell, whose manifestation no
man can comprehend. (F., 564.)
To understand, man must pass beyond
the stage of man, and self-realize himself
as " kin to Him " the Logos.
It is, however, doubtful whether
" Race " is the correct reading in our
text ; but as it is the clear reading in 15
the above notes are germane to our study.
The MS. apparently reads " every Limb."
This again is one of the most general
Gnostic mystical terms, and is taken over
from the Osiric Mysteries. The Limbs
of the God are scattered abroad, and
52
collected together again in the resurrec-
tion. The inner meaning of this graphic
symbolism may be gleaned from the FIXION.
following striking passages.
In a MS. of the Gnostic Marcus there
is a description of the method of sym
bolizing the Great Body of the Heavenly
Man, whereby the twenty-four letters of
the Greek alphabet were assigned in
pairs to the twelve Limbs. This Body
was the symbol of the ideal economy,
dispensation or ordering of the universe,
its planes, regions, hierarchies, and
powers. (F., 366.)
This also is the true Body of man, the
Source of all his bodies. And so we read
the following mystery-saying in The
Gospel of Eve :
" I stood on a lofty mountain and saw
a Great Man, and another, a dwarf, and
heard as it were a Voice of thunder, and
drew nigh for to hear. And He spake
unto me and said : * I am thou, and
thou art I ; and wheresoever thou art,
I am there, and in all am I sown
D 53
GNOSTIC ( r scatterecl )- And whencesoever thou
CRUCI- wiliest, thou gatherest Me ; and gathering
FIXION. Me, thou gatherest Thyself." (F., 439.)
This is a vision of the Great Person
and little person, of the Higher Self and
lower self. It may also be interpreted
in terms of the Logos and humanity ;
but it comes nearer home to think of it
as the mystery of the individual man
the scattering of the Limbs of the Great
Person in the personalities that have been
his in many births.
This idea is brought out more clearly
in a passage from The Gospel of Philip.
It is an apology or defence, as it was
called, a formula to be used by the soul
in its ascent above, as it passed through
the space of the Midst ; and for the
mystic it is a declaration of the state of
a man who is in his last compulsory
earth-life.
" I have recognised myself, and
gathered myself together from all sides.
I have sown no children for the Ruler,
but have torn up his roots, and have
54
gathered together my Limbs that were
scattered abroad. I know Thee who cRUCi?
Thou art ; for I am of those from Above." FIXION.
(Ibid.)
He has sown no children to the Ruler,
the Lord of Death ; he has not contracted
any fresh debt, or created a new form of
personality, into which he must again
incarnate. But he has torn up the roots
of Death, by shattering the form of
egoity, and bursting the bonds of Fate.
He has gathered together his Limbs,
completed the articulation of his Perfect
Body.
The Limbs were according to certain
orderings, one of which was the configura
tion of the five-fold Star, the five-
limbed Man . Thus in The A cts of Thomas
we read :
" Come Thou who art more ancient
far than the five holy Limbs Mind,
Thought, Reflection, Thinking, Rea
soning ! Commune with them of later
birth ! " (F., 422.)
These five Limbs are also the five
55
GNOSTIC Words of the mystery of the Vesture of
CRUCI- Li ght in the Pistis Sophia (p. 16), with
FIXION, which the Christ is clothed in power on
the Day of Triumph, the Great Day
"Come unto us," when His Limbs are
gathered together and the Song of the
Powers begins :
" Come unto us, for we are Thy Fellow-
Limbs. We are all one with thee. We
are one and the same, and Thou art one
and the same."
In the whole document much is said
of the " sweet mysteries that are in the
Limbs of the Ineffable," but it would be
too long to repeat it here. It will be
perhaps of greater service to append a
very striking passage, from The Books of
the Saviour, which has been copied into
the MS. of the Pistis Sophia (pp. 253,
254):
" And they who are worthy of the
Mysteries that dwell in the Ineffable,
which are those that have not emanated
these are prior to the First Mystery.
To use a similitude and correspondence
56
of speech that ye may understand, they TH
are the Limbs of the Ineffable. And CRUCI-
each is according to the dignity of its FIXION.
Glory the Head according to the dignity
of the Head, the Eye according to the
dignity of the Eye, the Ear according
to the dignity of the Ear, and the rest of
the Limbs [in like fashion] ; so that the
matter is plain : There are many Limbs
(Members) but only one Body.
" Of this I have spoken in a plan, a
correspondence and similitude, but not
in its true form ; nor have I revealed the
Word in Truth, but as the Mystery of
the Ineffable.
" And all the Limbs that are in Him
. . . , that is, they that dwell in the Mystery
of the Ineffable, and they that dwell in
Him, and also the Three Spaces that
follow according to their Mysteries
of all of these in truth and verity am I
the Treasure ; apart from which there
is no Treasure peculiar to [this] cosmos.
But there are other Words and Mysteries
and Regions [of other worlds].
57
GNOSTIC " Now> therefore Blessed is he who hath
CRUCI- found the Words of the Mysteries of the
FIXION. Space towards the exterior. He is a
God who hath found the Words of the
Mysteries of the second Space, in the
midst. He is a Saviour and free of every
space who hath found the Words of the
Mysteries of the third Space towards the
interior. . . .
" But He, on the other hand, who hath
found the Words of the Mysteries which
I have set forth for you according to a
similitude namely, the Limbs of the
Ineffable Amen I say unto you, that
man who hath found the Words of those
Mysteries in the Truth of God, he is the
First in Truth, and like unto Him ; for
it is through these Words and Mysteries
that [all things are made] and the universe
itself stands through that First One.
Therefore is he who hath found the
Words of these Mysteries, like unto the
First. For it is the gnosis of the Gnosis
of the Ineffable in which I have spoken
with you this day."
58
It is thus seen that the means used in ^Q STI
revealing the manner of the highest C RUCI-
Mysteries of the Ineffable was by the FIXION.
similitude of the Limbs or Members of
the Body. It, therefore, follows, as we
have already seen, that this symbolism
was one of the most, if not the most,
fundamental in this Gnosis. The three
stages of perfectioning are those of the
Saint, God and Saviour. But these are still
stages in evolution or process, no matter
how sublime they be. The fourth or
consummation is other ; it transcends
process, it is ever itself with itself, em
bracing all processes and all powers
simultaneously. But we must not be
tempted to comment on this instructive
passage, for there is quite enough material
in it to develop into a small treatise in
itself. For an admirable intuition of the
Mystery of the Limbs of the Ineffable,
and the meaning of the words " the Head
is according to the dignity of the Head,"
etc., the reader is referred to the beauti
ful passage in The Untitled Apocalypse
59
GNOSTIC of the Bruce Codex > quoted in the com-
CRUCI- ments on The Hymn of Jesus (pp. 54, 55).
FfXiON. The Gnostic seers lost themselves in
the contemplation of the simultaneous
simplicity and multiplicity of these Mys
teries. Thus again in the same Untitled
Apocalypse we read :
" He it is whose Limbs (Members)
make a myriad of myriads of Powers,
each one of which comes from Him."
(F., 547).
This graphic symbolism of the Limbs
is derived from the tradition of the
Osiric Mysteries. Many a passage could
be quoted in illustration from The Book
of the Coming-forth by Day, that strange
and marvellous collection of Egyptian
Rituals commonly known as the Book
of the Dead ; but perhaps the under-
meaning of the mystery is nowhere more
clearly shown than in the following
magnificent passage from The Litany
of the Sun, inscribed on the Tombs of the
Kings of ancient Thebes :
" The Kingly Osiris is an intelligent
60
Essence. His Limbs conduct Him ; His
Fleshes open the way for Him. Those
who are born from Him create Him.
They rest when they have caused the
Kingly Osiris to be born.
"It is He who causes them to be born.
It is He who engenders them. It is He
who causes them to exist. His Birth is
the Birth of Ra in Amenti. He causes
the Kingly Osiris to be born ; He causes
the Birth of Himself."
(See my World- Mystery, 2nd ed., p.
162.)
It requires no elaboration to show that
this is precisely the same mystery as the
secret set forth in our Vision of the Cross.
The Kingly Osiris is Atman, the Self,
the True Man, the Monad. This is the
Kingly Osiris in his male-female nature,
self-creative. Atman is both the producer
and product of evolution. In a re
stricted sense the above may be inter
preted from the standpoint of the in
dividuality and its series of personalities
in incarnation.
61
THE !(-. And now to return to the text.
CRUCI- The Race is the u PP er Nature, now
FIXION. scattered abroad in the hearts of men;
it is the true Spirit of man. the hidden
Divinity within him. It is this which
re-turns, and so causes the man to turn
or repent. It is obedient, that is audient,
to the Voice of the Self, the compelling
Utterance of the Logos. He who not
only hears, but hearkens to or obeys
the sweet counsels of this Great Persua
sion, becomes this Upper Nature con
sciously ; and therefore it no longer
is what it was, for it is conscious in the
man, and so the man is above men of
the lower nature.
16. These mysterious sentences all set
forth the state of true Self-consciousness.
So long as man is not conscious that he
is Divine, so long is the Divine in him
not what it really is ; the " lower "
"limits" the "higher." Union is at
tained by " hearkening," by " attention."
Then it is that the man becomes his
Higher Self, and that Higher Self be-
62
comes in its turn the Self, having taken IH5 ST
his self in separation into his Self as CRUCI-
union. FIXION.
17. This " attention " is the straining
or striving towards the One ; and there
fore no attention must be paid to the
many. The whole strife of warring
opinions and doubts must be reconciled,
or at-oned, within the Mystery. The
thought must be allowed to dwell but
little on " those without." A height must
be reached from which the whole human
drama can be seen as a spectacle below
and within ; this height is not with regard
to space and place, but with respect to
consciousness and realization that all is
taking place within the man s Great
Body as the operations of the Divine
economy. They who are " without the
mystery " are not arbitrarily excluded,
but are those who prefer to go forth
without instead of returning within.
18. They who have re-turned, or turned
back on themselves, and entered into
themselves for the realization of true
63
Self-consciousness, alone can understand
,-_ . e ,1 s^ -r-
CRUCI- tne meaning of the Great Passion, as
FIXION. has been so admirably set forth in the
Mystery-Ritual of the Dance.
Those who have consciousness of these
spiritual verities, nay, even those who
have but dimly felt their greatness, will
easily understand that the story of the
crucifixion as believed in by the masses
was for the Gnostics but the shadow of
an eternal happening that most in
timately concerned every man in his
inmost nature.
19. The outer story was centred round
a dramatic crisis of death on a stationary
cross a dead symbol, and a symbol of
death. But the inner rite was one of
movement and " dancing," a living sym
bol and a symbol of life. This was
shown to the disciple indeed, as we have
seen, he was made in the Dance to par
take in it that he might know the mystery
of suffering in a moment of Great Experi
ence. He saw it and became it ; it was
shown him in action. He had seen
64
sorrow and suffering, and the cause of it THE
had been dimly felt; but its ceasing CRUCI-
he did not yet know really, for the FIXION.
ceasing of sorrow could only come when
he could realize sorrow and joy, suffering
and bliss, simultaneously. And that
mystery the Christ alone knows.
20. Let the disciple then first see the
suffering of the man through, not his
own, but His Master s eyes. He will
first only see the mystery, grasp it
intellectually ; he will not as yet realize
it. When he realizes it, there will then
be bliss indeed, for he will begin to become
the Master Himself. And the Master is
the conqueror of woe not, however, in
the sense of the annihilator of it, but as the
one who rejoices in it ; for he knows that
it is the necessary concomitant of bliss,
and that the more pain he suffers in one
portion of his nature, the more bliss he
experiences in another ; the deeper the
one the deeper the other, and therewith
the intenser becomes his whole nature.
His Great Body is learning to respond
65
JSScTTr to grater and greater impulses or " vibra-
vjIMwoH^ , )}
CRUCI- tlons -
FIXION. The consummation is that he becomes
capable of experiencing joy in sorrow and
sorrow in joy ; and thus reaches to the
gnosis that these are inseparables, and
that the solution of the mystery is the
power of ever experiencing both simul
taneously.
21. It may thus to some extent become
clear that what is asserted of the Christ
in the general Gospel-story is typically
true and yet is not true. Those who
look at one side only of the living picture
see in a glass darkly.
If we could only realize that all the
ugliness and misery and confusion of life
is but the underside, as it were, of a
pattern woven on the Great Loom or
embroidered by Divine Fingers ! We can
in our imperfect consciousness see only
the underside, the medley of crossing of
threads, the knots and finishings-off ; we
cannot see the pattern. Nevertheless
it exists simultaneously with the under-
66
side. The Christ sees both sides simul- Q^QSTIC
taneously, and understands. CRUCI-
22. But the term that our Gnostic FIXION.
writer chooses with which to depict this
grade of being is not Christ, but Word or
Reason (Logos). This Reason is not the
ratiocinative faculty in man which con
ditions him as a duality ; it is rather
more as a Divine Monad, as Pure Reason,
or that which can hold all opposites in one.
It is called Word because it is the im
mediate intelligible Utterance of God.
23. This is the first mystery that
man must learn to understand ; then
will he be able to understand God as
unity ; and only finally will he under
stand the greatest mystery of all man,
the personal man, the thing we each of
us now are, God in multiplicity, and why
there is suffering.
24. With this the writer breaks off,
knowing f idly how difficult it is to express
in human speech the living ideas that have
come to birth in him, and knowing that
there are still more marvellous truths
GNOSTIC of which he has caught some glimpse or
CRUCI- heard some echo, but which he feels he
FIXION. can in no way set forth in proper decency.
And so he tells us the Lord is
taken up, unseen by the multitudes.
That is to say, presumably, no one in the
state of the multiplicity of the lower
nature can behold the vision of unity.
25. When he descends from the height
of contemplation, however, he remembers
enough to enable him to laugh at the
echoes of his former doubts and fancies
and misconceptions, and to make him
realize the marvellous power of the
natural living symbolic language that
underlies the words of the mystery-
narrative that sets forth the story of
the Christ.
68
POSTCRIPT*
The vision itself is not so marvellous THE
as the instruction ; nevertheless it allows CRUC
us to see that the Cross in its supernal FIXION.
nature is the Heavenly Man with arms
outstretched in blessing, showering bene
fits on all the perpetual Self-sacrifice
(F-, 33) And in this connection we
should remind ourselves of the following
striking sentence from The Untitled
Apocalypse of the Bruce Codex, an
apocalypse which contains perhaps the
most sublime visions that have survived
to us from the Gnosis :
"The Outspreading of His Hands is
the manifestation of the Cross."
And then follows the key of the mystery :
l< The Source of the Cross is the Man
[Logos] whom no man can comprehend."
(See Hymn of Jesus, p. 53.)
E 69
GNOSTIC No man can corn P reh end Man ; the
CRUCI- tittle cannot contain the Great, except
FIXION. potentially.
It was some echo of this sublime
teaching that found its way into the
naive though allegorical narrative of
The Acts of Philip. When Philip was
crucified he cursed his enemies.
" And behold suddenly the abyss was
opened, and the whole of the place in
which the proconsul was sitting was
swallowed up, and the whole of the
temple, and the viper which they wor
shipped, and great crowds, and the priests
of the viper, about seven thousand men,
besides women and children, except where
the apostles were ; they remained un
shaken."
This is a cataclysm in which the lower
nature of the man is engulfed. The
apostles are his higher powers ; the rest
the opposing forces. The latter plunge
into Hades and experience the punish
ments of those who crucify the Christ
70
and his apostles. They are thus con- JSQ STI
verted and sing their repentance. Where- CRUCI-
upon a Voice was heard saying : "I FIXION.
shall be merciful to you in the Cross
of Light."
Philip is reproved by the Saviour for
his unmerciful spirit.
" But I, O Philip, will not endure thee,
because thou hast swallowed up the men
in the abyss ; but behold My Spirit is in
them, and I will bring them up from the
dead ; and thus they, seeing thee, shall
believe in the Glory of Him that sent thee.
" And the Saviour having turned,
stretched up His hand, and marked a
Cross in the Air coming down from Above
even unto the Abyss, and it was full of
Light, and had its form after the like
ness of a ladder. And all the multitude
that had gone down from the City into
the Abyss came up on the Ladder of the
Cross of Light ; but there remained
below the proconsul and the viper which
these worshipped. And when the multi
tude had come up, having looked upon
THE Philip hanging head downwards, they
CRUCI- lamented with great lamentation at the
FIXION. lawless action which they had done."
The doers of the "lawless" deed are
the same as the " lawless Jews " in the
Acts of John " those who are under the
law of the lawless Serpent " ; that is to
say, those who are under the sway of
Generation, as contrasted with those under
the law of Re-generation (see Hymn of
Jesus, pp. 28, 47).
Philip stands for the man learning the
last lesson of divine mercy. The Proconsul
and the Viper are the antitypes of the
Saviour and the Serpent of Wisdom.
The crucifixion of Philip is, however, not
the same as the crucifixion of the Christ ;
he is hanged reversed, his head to the
earth and not towards heaven. It is
a lower grade of the mysteries.
Concerning the mystery of the cruci
fixion of the Christ we learn somewhat of
its inner nature from the doctrines of
the Docetae.
His baptism was on this wise : He
72
washed Himself in the Jordan, that is the Q STI
Stream of the Logos, and after His CRUCI-
purification in the Life-giving Water, He FIXION.
became possessed of a spiritual or perfect
body, the type and signature of which
were in accordance with the matter of
his virginity, that is of virgin substance ;
so that when the World-ruler, or God of
generation or death, condemned his own
plasm, the physical body, to death, that
is to the Cross, the soul nourished in that
physical body might strip off the body
of flesh, and nail it to the " tree," and
yet triumph over the powers of the Ruler
and not be found naked, but clothed
in a robe of glory. Hence the saying :
" Except a man be born of Water and
the Spirit he cannot enter into the King
ship of the Heavens ; that which is born
of the flesh is flesh." (F., p. 221).
It was because of these and such like
ideas, and in the conviction that the
mystery of the crucifixion was to be
worked out in every man, that a Gnostic
writer, following the Valentinian tradition,
73
GNOSTIC ex P lains a famou s passage in the Pauline
CRUCI- Letter to the Ephesians as follows :
FIXION. " For this cause I bow my knees to
the God and Father and Lord of our
Lord Jesus Christ, that God may vouch
safe to you that Christ may dwell in
your inner man that is to say, the
psychic and not the bodily man that
ye may be strong to know what is the
Depth - that is, the Father of the
universals and what is the Breadth
that is the Cross, the Boundary of the
Pleroma [or Fullness] * and what is the
Greatness that is, the Pleroma of the
aeons [the eternities or universals, the
Limbs of the Body of the Ineffable]."
(F-, 532).
To be closely compared with the
Vision in The Acts of John is the Address
of Andrew to the Cross in The Acts of
Andrew. They both plainly belong to
the same tradition, and might indeed
have been written by the same hand.
" Rejoicing I come to thee, Thou
Cross, the Life-giver, Cross whom I now
74
know to be mine. I know thy mystery ; Jg^ TI
for thou hast been planted in the world CRUCI-
to make-fast things unstable. FIXION.
" Thy head stretcheth up into heaven,
that thou mayest symbol-forth the
Heavenly Logos, the Head of all things.
" Thy middle parts are stretched forth,
as it were hands to right and left, to put
to flight the envious and hostile power
of the Evil One, that thou mayest gather
together into one them [sci., the Limbs]
that are scattered abroad.
"Thy foot is set in the earth, sunk
in the deep [i.e., abyss], that thou mayest
draw up those that lie beneath the
earth and are held fast in the regions
beneath it, and mayest join them to
those in heaven.
" O Cross, engine, most skilfully de
vised, of Salvation, given unto men by
the Highest ; O Cross, invincible trophy
of the Conquest of Christ o er His foes ;
O Cross, thou life-giving tree, roots
planted on earth, fruit treasured in
heaven ; O Cross most venerable, sweet
75
GNOSTIC thmg and SW6et name O Cross m St
CRUCI- worshipful, who bearest as grapes the
FIXION. Master, the true vine, who dost bear,
too, the Thief as thy fruit, fruitage of
faith through confession ; thou who
bringest the worthy to God through the
Gnosis and summonest sinners home
through repentance ! "
A magnificent address indeed. The
identification of the Master and the man
with the Cross and in the Cross is hardly
disguised. The Cross is the Tree of Life
and the tree of death simultaneously.
" Give up thy life that thou mayest
live," says that inspired mystic treatise,
The Voice of the Silence, and this is no
other than the secret of the Mystery
of the Cross. The Master is hanged
between two thieves, the one repentant
and the other obdurate, the soul turned
towards the Light and towards the
Darkness, all united in the one Mystery
of the Cross the Mystery of Man.
We have seen above that Philip is
hanged head downwards, but he is not
76
the most famous instance of this reversal.
The best known is associated with the
name of Peter in the mystic romances.
Thus in a fragment of the Linus-
collection called The Martyrdom of Peter,
we learn the doctrine as set forth in a
speech put into the mouth of Peter
thus crucified :
" Fitly wast Thou alone stretched on
the Cross with head on high, O Lord,
who hast redeemed all of the world from
sin.
" I have desired to imitate Thee in
Thy Passion too ; yet would I not take
on myself to be hanged upright.
" For we, pure men and sinners, are
born from Adam, but Thou art God of
God, Light of true Light, before all aeons
and after them ; thought worthy to
become for men Man without strain of
man, Thou has stood forth man s glorious
Saviour Thou ever upright, ever raised
on high, eternally Above !
" We, men according to the flesh, are
sons of the First Man (Adam), who sank
77
GNOSTIC ki s keing m t* 16 ear th, whose fail in
CRUCI- human generation is shown forth.
FIXION. " For we are brought to birth in such
a way, that we do seem to be poured into
earth, so that the right is left, the left
doth right become ; in that our state
is changed in those who are the authors
of this life.
" For this world down below doth
think the right what is the left this
world in which Thou, Lord, hast found
us like the Ninevites, and by Thy holy
preaching hast thou rescued these about
to die."
The " authors of this life " of reversal,
are the " parents " of the " lower nature ";
not our natural parents whom we are
to love, but the powers of illusion we are
to abandon. The Jonah-myth was used
as a type of the Initiate, who after being
" three days " in the Belly of the Fish,
the Great Life or Animal that dwells
in the Ocean or Great Water, is vomited
forth re-generate, and so a fit vehicle
for preaching with compelling words or
acts for the benefit of those in Nineveh
or the Jerusalem Below, or this world.
But for those who had ears to hear
there was a still further instruction con
cerning the secret of the Mystic Cross.
" But ye, my brothers, who have the
right to hear, lend me the ears of your
heart, and understand what now must
be revealed to you the hidden mystery
of every nature and secret source of
every thing composed.
"For the First Man, whose race I
represent by my position, with head re
versed, doth symbolize the birth into
destruction ; for that his birth was
death and lacked the Life-stream.
" But of His own compassion the
Power Above came down into the world,
by means of corporal substance, to him
who by a just decree had been cast down
into the earth, and hanged upon the
Cross, and by the means of this most holy
calling [the Cross] He did restore us,
and did make for us these present things
(which had till then remained unchanged
79
GNOSTIC by men s unrj g hte us error) into the
CRUCI- Left, and those that men had taken
FIXION. for the Left into eternal things.
" In exaltation of the Right He hath
changed all the signs into their proper
nature, considering as good those thought
not good, and those men thought malefic
most benign.
" Whence in a mystery the Lord hath
said : If ye make not the Right like
to the Left, the Left like to the Right,
Above as the Below, Before as the Behind,
ye shall not know God s Kingdom. "
(This saying is from The Gospel accord
ing to the Egyptians.)
This saying have I made manifest
in myself, my brothers ; this is the way
in which your eyes of flesh behold me
hanging. It figures forth the Way of
the First Man.
" But ye, beloved, hearing these words,
and, by conversion of your nature and
changing of your life, perfecting them,
even as ye have turned you from that
Way of Error where ye trod, unto the
80
most sure state of Faith, so keep ye J5Q STI
running, and strive towards the Peace CRUCI-
that calls you from Above, living the FIXION.
holy life. For that the Way in which
ye travel there is Christ.
" Therefore with Jesus, Christ, true
God, ascend the Cross. He hath been
made for us the One and Only Word ;
whence also doth the Spirit say : Christ
is the Word and Voice of God.
" The Word in truth is symbolled forth
by that straight stem on which I hang.
As for the Voice since that voice is a
thing of flesh, with features not to be
ascribed unto God s nature, the cross-
piece of the Cross is thought to figure
forth that human nature which suffered
the fault of change in the First Man, but
by the help of God-and-man received
again its real Mind.
" Right in the centre, joining twain
in one, is set the nail of discipline
conversion and repentance." (F.F., 446-
449-)
The interpretation becomes somewhat
81
GNOSTIC strained towards the end. The reversed
CRUCI- hanging typified the man of sex, or the
FIXION. man still under the sway of generation,
separated into male and female. Such
hang head-downwards in the Great
Womb of Nature, and all is reversed for
them. Hanged upright, the re-generate
man contains in himself in active opera
tion the twin powers in union, now used
for spiritual creation, and self-perfection.
And if it be thought that there is
abandonment of any thing in this con
summation, then let it be known that
it is only a giving up of the part for the
whole, the passing from the state of
separation to the realization of inex
pressible bliss ; for as the inspired writer
of The Untitled Apocalypse phrases it in
an ecstasy of enthusiasm :
" This is the eternal Father ; this the
ineffable, unthinkable, incomprehensible,
untranscendible Father. He it is in
whom the All became joyous ; it rejoiced
and was joyful, and brought forth in
its joy myriads of myriads of
82
they were called the Births of Joy,
because the All had joyed with the C RUCI-
Father. FixiON.
" These are the worlds from which
the Cross upsprang ; out of these in
corporeal Members did the Man arise."
(F., 550).
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