The Gnostic Crucifixion Part 2

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 nomenclature is somewhat different, I cannot refrain from quoting a striking pa.s.sage from a Gnostic scripture to give the reader some idea of the lofty region of thought to which the Gnosis accustomed its disciples.

It is taken from _The Great Announcement_, a doc.u.ment ascribed by Hippolytus to the very beginning of the Christianized Gnosis. Strong efforts have been made to question this ascription, and to prove the doc.u.ment to be of a later date, but I think I have established a high probability 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 aeons (Eternities) there are two Branchings, without beginning or end, from one Root, which is the Power unseeable, incomprehensible Silence.

"Of these Branchings one is manifested from Above--the Great Power, Mind of the universals, ordering all things, male; and the other from Below--Great Thought, female, generating all things.

"Thence partnering one another they pair (lit. have union--_syzygia_), and bring into manifestation the Middle Distance, 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 Boundless Power, which hath neither beginning nor end, subsisting in onlyness.

"It was by emanating from this Power (_sci._, Incomprehensible Silence) that Thought-in-onlyness became two.

"Yet was He, (the Supernal Father) one; for having her (_sci._ 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 'Father' till Thought named Him 'Father.'

"As, therefore, Himself pro-ducing Himself by means of Himself, He manifested 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, Incomprehensible 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 sets forth in living symbol precisely what is explained above in more "abstract" terms. It would, however, be a mistake to make abstractions of these sublime ideas; they must be realized as fullnesses, 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 _ma-ya_. (See the Trismegistic Sermon, "Though Unmanifest G.o.d is most Manifest," and the commentary, _H._, ii., 99-109).

11. I have translated the term d?ap???e??? by "cross-beaming," for d?ap????? 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 s.h.i.+ps_--and thus confined its whole revolution." (See _H._, i., 440.)

This "cross-beaming" or operation of the Cross is the mode of the energizing 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 contemplation 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 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 G.o.d--it was spiritual suicide to rest content with a limited and prejudiced view. Every mould of thought was to be broken, every imperfect conception 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 is everywhere, is not seen or spoken of, "much more shall the Lord of it be 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 att.i.tude 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 referring 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 mult.i.tude 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 "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 G.o.d_, 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, who have "risen from the Dead," are born into the Race of the Logos, they 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 Naa.s.sene Doc.u.ment 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" (_H._, 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 Iexai, 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 fas.h.i.+on of a mother, brings forth the self-taught Race, declares that G.o.d is the Sower of it" (_H._, i., 220). This is the term he applies to his beloved Therapeuts, adding that "this Race is rare and found with difficulty."

Elsewhere he tells us that the angels are the "people" of G.o.d; but there is a still higher degree of union, whereby a man becomes one of the Race, or Kin, of G.o.d. 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 pa.s.sed beyond these introductory exercises, becoming natural disciples of G.o.d, receiving Wisdom free from all toil, migrate to this incorruptible and perfect Race, receiving a lot superior to their former lives in genesis" (_H._, i., 554.).

And so in one of the Hymns of Thrice Greatest Hermes, after the triple trisagion, 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 G.o.d." (_H._, ii., 221.)

The "Elect Race" of Valentinus is the "Sons.h.i.+p" of Basilides that incarnates on earth for the abolition of Death. (_F._, 303.)

In the _Pistis Sophia_ doc.u.ment, 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 subcycle 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 when "those who turn in the lowest regions" should be regarded--"the 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 _Unt.i.tled Apocalypse_ 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.