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

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

"Of the universal AEons 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 , 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 that Thought-in-onlyness became two.

"Yet was He, one; for having her in Himself He was alone . He was not, however, 'first,' although transcendent; it was only in manifesting Himself from Himself that He became 'second' . 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 , but beholding Him, she concealed the Father, that is the Power, in Herself, and is male-female, Power and Thought.

"Thence is it that they partner one another 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 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."

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.

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 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 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.

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 "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.

"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 is a 'nothing.'"

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 Naassene Document writes:

"One is the Nature Below which is subject to Death; and one is the Race without a king which is born Above" .

And the Christian Gnostic commentator refers to the "ineffable Race of perfect men" , who are in the Logos.

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" . 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 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 incorruptible and perfect Race, receiving a lot superior to their former lives in genesis" .

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." .

"This Race, my sons, is never taught; but when He willeth it, its memory is restored by God."

The "Elect Race" of Valentinus is the "Sonship" of Basilides that incarnates on earth for the abolition of Death.

"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:

"'Give us authority that we may create for ourselves aeons and worlds according to Thy Word, upon which Thou didst agree with Thy servant; for Thou alone art the changeless One, Thou alone the boundless, the uncontainable, 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.'"

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 collected together again in the resurrection. The inner meaning of this graphic symbolism may be gleaned from the following striking passages.

In a MS. of the Gnostic Marcus there is a description of the method of symbolizing 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.

"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 . And whencesoever thou willest, thou gatherest Me; and gathering Me, thou gatherest Thyself.'"

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.

"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 gathered together my Limbs that were scattered abroad. I know Thee who Thou art; for I am of those from Above."

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.

"Come Thou who art more ancient far than the five holy Limbs--Mind, Thought, Reflection, Thinking, Reasoning! Commune with them of later birth!"

"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."

"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 of speech that ye may understand, they are the Limbs of the Ineffable. And each is according to the dignity of its 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 ; so that the matter is plain: There are many Limbs 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 cosmos. But there are other Words and Mysteries and Regions .

"Now, therefore, Blessed is he who hath found the Words of the Mysteries of the 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--Am?n 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 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."

"He it is whose Limbs make a myriad of myriads of Powers, each one of which comes from Him." .

"The Kingly Osiris is an intelligent 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.

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