Read Ebook: The Gnostic Crucifixion by Mead G R S George Robert Stow

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Ebook has 150 lines and 14594 words, and 3 pages

PAGE

PREFACE 9

THE VISION OF THE CROSS 12

COMMENTS 20

POSTCRIPT 69

TEXTS

ECHOES FROM THE GNOSIS

SOME PROPOSED SUBJECTS FOR FORTHCOMING VOLUMES

THE CHALDAEAN ORACLES. THE HYMN OF THE PRODIGAL. SOME ORPHIC FRAGMENTS.

PREFACE

The strongest proof that we have in our fragment very early material is found 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 to invent comparatively so small a wonder? On the other hand, it is easy to believe that from similar simple stories 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 probability, 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 narrative, as translated from Bonnet's text. John is supposed to be the narrator.

THE VISION OF THE CROSS.

And my Lord stood in the midst of the Cave, and filled it with light, and said:

COMMENTS.

The translation is frequently a matter of difficulty, for the text has been copied 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 completely broken down. It is of course quite natural that orthodox scribes should blunder when transcribing Gnostic documents, 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 original than other reconstructions which have been attempted.

It is always a matter of difficulty for 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 orthodoxy 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 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 we may well believe was but one of many visions of the mystic crucifixion.

The gentle contempt of those who had entered into the mystery, for those unknowing 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.

But to the Gnostic the Mount of Olives was no physical hill, though it was a mount in the physical, and Jerusalem no physical city, though a city in the physical. The Mount, however it might be distinguished 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.

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 formative Power, who is "Living Fire begotten of Light."

Hippolytus summarizes, doubtless imperfectly, from the Docetic document that lay before him, as follows:

That is, presumably, the material Air, Air of the Darkness, as compared with the spiritual Air or Air of the Light. The Docetic writer, Hippolytus says, explained the use of the term as follows:

For instance, in setting forth the Sophia-mythus, or Wisdom-story, or mystery of cosmogenesis, of the Valentinian school, Hippolytus , treats of the Cross as the final mystery of all. With original documents before him, he writes:

"Now it is called Boundary, because it bounds off the Deficiency from the Fullness exterior to it; it is called Partaker because it partakes of the Deficiency as well; and it is called Cross 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 in its true self is a living idea, a reality or root-principle. It is the principle of separation and limit, dividing entity from non-entity, being from non-being, perfection from imperfection, fullness 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 Deficiency. Finally, it is the Stock or Pillar as that which "has stood, stands and will stand"--the principle of immobility, 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 confessedly the supreme mystery. From it the mind, the formal mind of man, "falls back unable to grasp it"; for it is precisely this personal mind that creates duality, and insinuates itself between cause and effect. The spiritual Mind alone can embrace the opposites.

And then when the Lord, the Higher Self of the man, was balanced and justified, the 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.

"The multitude below in Jerusalem" is the lower nature of the man, his unillumined 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 conformed; it is the mystery of the transformation of what we call evil into good. The Body of the Christ is perfected 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.

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. Therefore 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 ?tman or the Self.

The Door is the Door of the Two in One, the state of equilibrium of the opposites which opens out into the all-embracing consciousness and understanding 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-between 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 ?tman, 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, because it is the that which is stable and unchanging amid perpetual change. Faith in its true mystic meaning seems to denote the power of withdrawing the personal consciousness from between the 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 substance 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 substance of Life.

"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!'"

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 in perfect mystic union. As the currents crossed the forms changed, but without loss of life or consciousness. 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 of 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 Bread of Life which must be partaken of by all before the Day of Triumph was 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.

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 passage from a Gnostic scripture to give the reader some idea of the lofty region of thought to which the Gnosis accustomed its disciples.

"To you, therefore, I say what I say and write what I write. And the writing is this:

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