Агностицизам е филозофско и теолошко верување  дека спиритуалната  вистина, као што е постојање  на Бога, богови или божанства,е непозната односно  дека е невозможно да се  утврди .Зборот   агностицизам прв   почнал да го користи  http://sr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=%D0%A2%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%81_%D0%A5%D0%B0%D0%BA%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B8&action=edit -   Томас Хенри Хаксли 1869. год , а се  користи   и за оние који не се убедени во постоењето на  таканаречени духовни појави . Зборот агностик води потекло од грчко α (без) и γνοςισ ( знаење).

Агностици    тврдат дека е невозможно да се дојде до потполно и сигурно духовно сознание,некои допуштаат дека е тоа можно,но тие лично немаат такво сознание.Агностицизмот вклучува скептицизам спрема религиозните верувања.  Најпознати  агностици (во  модерно сваќање на зборот )   се Томас Хенри Хаксли, Чарлс Дарвин 

Gnosticizam

Epohalni pronalazak gnostičkih jevanđelja, koji se dogodio u decembru 1945. godine u Gornjem Egiptu, u blizini mesta Nadz(g) Hamadi, praćen je mračnom pričom o najsurovijoj krvnoj osveti seljaka Muhameda Alija i njegove braće.

Autorka: Irina Marković

Ćup u kojem se nalazilo trinaest papirusa u kožnom povezu umalo nije završilo u vatri, jer ih je njihova majka iz neznanja koristila za potpalu zajedno sa slamom po kojoj su bili rasuti.

U strahu od policije Muhamed je nekoliko knjiga dao na čuvanje jednom svešteniku, a nedugo potom, knjige dospevaju u ruke mesnog učitelja istorije, koji ih, naslutivši njihovu vrednost, šalje u Kairo da im se utvrdi vrednost. Iako bivaju prodati na crnoj berzi, papirusi će privući pažnju egipatske vlade koja će otkupiti jednu, a konfiskovati deset i po knjiga i predati ih Koptskom muzeju u Kairu.

Veliki deo trinaestog kodeksa sačinjenog od pet izvanrednih tekstova biće, ipak, prokrijumčaren u Ameriku. Saznavši za kodekse, Žil Kvispel, cenjeni istoričar religije iz Utrehta, zatražiće od Jungove fondacije u Cirihu da otkupi kodeks. Zahtev mu biva uslišen, ali on ubrzo otkriva da neke stranice nedostaju, što će ga naterati da ode u Kairo, gde uspeva da dobije fotografije nekih tekstova. Čim je počeo da ih dešifruje, susreo se s rečima koje su veoma ozbiljno zapretile da iz temelja uzdrmaju čitavu hrišćansku doktrinu:
«Ovo su tajne reči koje je živi Isus izgovorio, a njegov brat blizanac Juda Toma zapisao.»

Kvispel je prepoznao da ovi redovi pripadaju od ranije poznatim izvornim fragmentima na grčkom Jevanđelja po Tomi, koji su pronađeni u Oksirinhu 1897. i 1903. godine, međutim, otkriće celokupnog teksta pretilo je da podstakne pitanja o autentičnosti sadržaja zvaničnih Jevanđelja. Jevanđelje po Tomi bilo je, naime, samo jedno od pedeset i dva teksta pronađena u crvenom ćupu kod Nag Hamadija. To su bili do tada potpuno nepoznati tekstovi u kojima se oštro kritikuje hrišćanstvo za krivo izlaganje istine, koja se pak nalazi u svom punom obliku u ovim skrivenim tekstovima. Kasnije je utvrđeno da su oni, zapravo, prevodi na koptski još starijih grčkih rukopisa.

U njima se govori, karakterističnom stilskom formom jevanđelja, o postanku čoveka i kosmosa, ali na sasvim drugačiji način nego u Knjizi Postanja; čitava kosmogonija prožeta je predhrišćanskim mističkim kultovima i misterijama, neoplatonističkom filozofijom, pa čak i uticajima dalekoistočnih religija.  O Isusu se govori, kao i o Mariji Magdaleni i drugim poznatim protagonistima Novog zaveta u potpuno drugačijem kontekstu od onog novozavetnog.

Da bi se na najbolji način razumelo zbog čega je pronalazak ovih tekstova uzburkao duhove evropske intelektualne javnosti i zašto se do današnjih dana ta bura nije stišala, najbolje je steći uvid u sama gnostička jevanđelja. Moglo bi se reći da baš u njima leži pravi odgovor na fenomen planetarne popularnosti dela kao što je Davinčijev kod, Dena Brauna, ali i ključ za razumevanje nekih velikih književnih dela poput Heseovog Demijana, ili Nečistih sila Fjodora Dostojevskog.

Gnostički mit

Gnostički autori izlagali su svoj mit uvek po određenoj, unapred zadatoj shemi i etapama. Svi nivoi gnostičkog mita proizlaze postupno jedan iz drugog, bez obzira na to da li se mogu rekonstruisati iz različitih jevanđelja, ili kao paradigmu uzimamo samo jedno.

Njihov mit predodređen je krajnjim ciljem, koga ukratko možemo odrediti kao spasenje i Boga i Čoveka, ukoliko je taj čovek prethodno primio gnozu, tajno i spasonosno saznanje koje utiče na njegov ontološki preobražaj. Ovo znanje mogu primiti samo oni izabrani time što su čuli poziv sa nebesa. Ovde već nailazimo na duboko razmimoilaženje s hrišćanskom doktrinom jer je kod hrišćana vera, kao i spoznaja Boga, dostupna svima bez razlike, ili bi bar tako trebalo da bude.

Gnostički mit o postanju možemo podeliti u sledeće etape:

1) Prikaz božanske uzvišenosti, čistote i transcendencije, nenarušenog jedinstva  kosmosa, njegove punoće u apsolutnom smislu, Plerome, odnosno duhovnog sveta, nasuprot Kenomi odnosno ništavilu, koje odgovara pojavnom, tj. svetu dostupnom našim čulima. To je svet gornjih eona, naime božanskih emanacija; prikaz emaniranja «Oca Sviju»; popunjavanje božanskih nebeskih prostranstava mnoštvom po moći nižih bića i njihovih velikih carstava »u svim besmrtnim nebesima i njihovim svodovima» (Pismo Eugnostovo).

2) Narušavanje sklada božanske Plerome od strane Boga samog, naime, jedne njegove emanacije, nižeg androginog božanstva i to njegovog ženskog dela Sofije; rođenje Sofijinogmonstruoznog i nedovršenog sina Jaldabaota; stvaranje donjeg sveta i njegovih slugu Arhonata, zlih sila.

3) Stvaranje čoveka kao sredstva spasenja stanovnika donjeg sveta; borba gornjih i donjih eona oko božanske iskre svetlosti, odnosno čovečije duše, jer ona je, ne slične (kao kod hrišćana), već iste prirode kao i božanska.

4) Vraćanje duše u narušeno pleromatsko jedinstvo, kojim i Bog, «Otac Sviju», i Čovek (gnostik) postižu Spasenje; čovek prima svoje prvobitno obličije, doslovno se rastopivši, ili stopivši s Bogom, u njegovoj večnoj i nepromenljivoj svetlosti.

(Veliko pitanje je šta se u tom slučaju događa s ličnošću tj. sa samosvešću.)

Ovim se završava gnostički mit, ali isto tako i postizanje prvog stepena gnoze za onoga ko je mit istinski razumeo. Dalje usavršavanje gnoze postiže se tako što «svako treba da vežba na više načina i biće oslobođen od prirodnog zakona, te neće skrenuti s puta...» (Rasprava o vaskrsenju).

U prvoj fazi gnostočkog mita govori se, kao što smo već rekli, o onostranom božanskom svetu, koji je Neporočnost i Pleroma, savršenstvo svetlosti, čistote i punoće. Tu obitava u početku (ne u smislu vremena, već kao uzrok, jer se ovde radi o večnosti), sam «Istinski Bog, Otac Sviju, Duh Sveti», dok ne poželi da spozna samog sebe.

Božija samospoznaja inicira emaniranje, a interpretira se na sledeće načine:
«Jer On, Praotac bez početka, vidi sebe u sebi samome kao u ogledalu, kada se prikazao u obličiju Autopatora...On je uistinu po starosti ravan onome koji mu prethodi, ali mu nije ravan po moći» (Pismo Eugnostovo);
«Onaj ko žudi za sobom u savršenstvu svetlosti, poznaje nepomućenu svetlost...Onaj ko sebe vidi u sopstvenoj svetlosti, koja ga okružuje- on je izvor vode života...Izvor duha potekao je od žive vode života i on je ispunio sve eone i svetove» (Apokrif Jovanov).

Ovde se sasvim jasno uočava sličnost s antičkim mitom o Narcisu, jer i za Narcisa kao i za gnostičkog Boga, ovakav vid samospoznaje je, s jedne strane, poguban po identitet i celovitost, ali zato, s druge, on započinje neumitni dijalektički proces ka istinskoj samospoznaji, koja je izjednačena sa njegovom ontologijom- spoznati pravu sliku o sebi, jednako je: bivstvovati u svom idealnom ostvarenom smislu. Iako gnostici Jaldabaotu pripisuju pripisuju svo zlo, ovaj drugi, u potpunosti savršeni Bog ipak se emanira, ne da bi zbog svoje neograničene dobrote i ljubavi (kao kod hrišćana) stvorio nešto drugo od sebe, nego da bi na taj način jasnije sagledao samog sebe, razgrađujući svoje jedinstvo u mnoštvo personifikovanih atributa, dok na kraju ne izađe iz svoje onostranosti (transcendencije) i ne pređe u ovostranost (imanenciju). Njegov krajnji cilj je da preko čoveka, to jest, pomoću njegove duše, povrati ono što je sam sebi sebi oduzeo svojim emaniranjem- sopstvenu celovitost. Može se steći utisak da su motivi gnostičkog Boga egoistični, ali ipak ne treba prenagliti sa zaključkom, jer paradoks sadržan u dinamici njegove ličnosti je zapravo prividan, a bio je i neophodan da bi se gnostici učvrstili u svom laskavom uverenju da je njihova duša ista kao i božanska, te da tako oni, kao jedna duhovna elita jedini imaju pravo na spasenje; isto tako, taj paradoks bio je nužan da bi otpočeo veličanstveni proces stvaranja vasione i svega u njoj, a to nije mala stvar.

Ovakva kosmogoniska interpretacija mnogo je bliža Hesiodovoj Teogoniji, orfičkim i eleusinskim misterijama, kao i persijskoj Mazdajasni (zoroastrizmu) i drugim drevnim kutovima i religijama. Čitava gnostička filozofija zapravo pre podseća na neku dalekoistočnu (istovetnost božanske i ljudske duše, svet je privid, uloga Svetlosti i prosvetljenja, itd). Neki naučnici smatraju da su hinduizam i budizam mogli imati uticaja na gnostička učenja, jer su trgovački putevi između rimsko-helenskog i dalekoistočnog sveta upravo tada počinjali da se otvaraju, a postoje i izvesni podaci o delovanju budističkih misionara u Aleksandriji.

Za pravoverne hrišćane, gnostici su od najranijih vremena bili ništa drugo do jeretici i veoma su oštro osuđivani: lionski biskup Irinej, još u drugom veku, piše petotomno delo pod naslovom Uništenje i prevrat lažno- samozvanog znanja, a njegov poduhvat petnaest godina kasnije upotpunjuje jedan rimski učitelj Hipolit, koji je napisao veliko delo pod naslovom Pobijanje svih jeresi da bi njime «raskrinkao i pobio zločesto huljenje jeretika». Naime, treba imati na umu da je u prva dva veka posle Isusovog raspeća, dok još nije postignut konsenzus o pravoj veri na crkvenim saborima (počevši od onog u Nikeji 325. godine, na kome je ustanovljen Simbol vere ili nikejski kredo), postojalo mnoštvo sekti koje su sebe nazivale hrišćanskim, a zapravo su bile gnostičke. Hrišćanstvo su ozvaničili milanskim ediktom 313. godine Konstantin I (Veliki) i istočni car Licinije, a tada su biskupi bili nadrđeni policiji, pa je posedovanje jeretičkih knjiga tretirano kao krivično delo, a knjige bivale uništavane i spaljivanje. Ovakve mere bile su neophodne Konstantinu da bi osiguravši jedinstvo vere Istočnog i Zapadnog carstva, osigurao i političku stabilnost. To mu je na kraju i uspelo, a hrišćansto je nastavilo da živi u svom uzletu do današnjih dana, iako praćeno burnim i često krvoločnim previranjima.

Priča o eonima

Posle božanskog sozercanja, vasiona počinje da se odmotava kroz eone, ili božije hipostaze, a taj trenutak ujedno predstavlja i početak druge faze gnostičkog mita.

Grčka reč eon (aion) koja znači vreme, vek, život, sudbina, večnost, u gnostičkim tekstovima interpretirana je na više načina. Ona može pratiti izvorna značenja kada se govori o prostoru u kome se nalaze nadnebesna božanska bića, prostoru koji ima svoje vreme i svoju večnost. U ovom kontekstu uputna je Aristotelova konstatacija: «Tu su nam reč predali naši preci kao božansko znanje» (De Caelo, A,9,279a). Naime, u ovom pojmu premošćuje se razlika između ovostranog i onostranog, a eon dobija ulogu grčkog boga Hermesa, glasnika bogova, koji stoji upravo na ovoj teško premostivoj granici.

U eonima nalaze se takođe eoni, ali ne u smislu manjih prostora u većim, jednih večnosti u dugim, već kao hipostazirani (postvareni) i personifikovani božiji atributi, moći i sile. Tako da, svaki eon ima svoje lično ime: Barbelo, Misao, Prva Spoznaja, Neporočnost, Nous (Um), Hristos Iluminator, Elelet, Autopator, Besmrtni Čovek, Sin Čoveka, Sofija. Svaki eon razlikuje se po moći i spoznaji Oca. Najveću privilegiju među eonima ima Sin, Hristos, koji je ujedno i Otac.: «Sin je njegovo, Očevo ime» (Jevanđelje istine); «Ja sam Otac, ja sam Mati, ja sam Sin», govori Hristos Jovanu, sinu Zavedejevom u Apokrifu Jovanovom. Ipak, Hristosu je dodeljena značajna uloga, jer on je taj koji treba da obznani ljudima Oca, da bi potom, putem ovog spasonosnog saznanjai posebnog životnog režima oni mogli da se vrate Ocu od kojeg su potekli. Na taj način oni izvršavaju ne samo sopstveno spasenje, nego posredno učestvuju u spasenju samog Boga. Gnostici su, dakle, ti koji spasavaju Boga i ne samo to, svaki gnostik ponaosob može i mora svojom uzvišenom gnozom prevazići samog Isusa, jer na kraju svi će postati isto- Otac! Hristos, dakle, nema ulogu iskupitelja čovečanstva i spasitelja pale čovečije duše, već je on samo nosilac, k*rir, koji ljudima prenosi poruku od Oca. Oni tada primaju samo prvi stepen gnoze, dok njeno potpuno postizanje zavisi od samospoznaje, jer se svi odgovori zapravo već nalaze u njima samima. Ovako izgleda gnostička interpretacija prilično reducirane uloge Isusa Hristosa, a ujedno je i izložena treća faza gnostičkog mita.

U četvrtoj fazi ponovo se uspostavlja narušeno pleromatsko jedinstvo, istovremenim i uzajamnim spasenjem i Boga i Čoveka. Gnostici ponekad idu toliko daleko da samog Boga nazivaju Čovekom, Isusove muke na Golgoti prividom, a samog Isusa običnim čovekom u koga se spustio duh, a potom ga posle raspeća napustio. Slično viđenje Isusa imamo u Islamu i kod Monofizita- Isus nije Gospod Bog, već prorok ili niže biće. Jasno je da je ovakvo gledište za pravoverne hrišćane bilo krajnje neprihvatljivo. U ovim stavovim ogleda se jedan jasan antropozofski i na više načina izveden dualistički stav.

Priča o Sofiji

Prateći sudbinu jednog drugog, a u nekim tekstovima istog, androginog eona Sofije, vraćamo se na dugu etapu gnostičkog mita. Naime, eon Sofija poželeo je «...da iz sebe iznedri lik». Sofija je to učinila, ali «bez saglasnosti duha i bez znanja njenog družbenika» (Apokrif Jovanov).

Slično kao starozavetni pali anđeo Danica ili Lucifer (onaj koji nosi svetlost), koji kaže:» Učiniću sebe jednakim svevišnjem» ( Is. 14,12), Sofija je posegnula za onim što joj po prirodi njenog bića ne pripada, bila je gorda i poželela da stvara, tačnije emanira, bez saglasnosti Oca i «Nevidljivog Duha» (Uočavamo sličnost s Evinim praroditeljskim grehom). Isto kao što i Otac stvara promišljanjem, tako je i Sofija pomislila «misao o sebi» i stvorila jedno nesavršeno nakazno delo, himeričnog boga u obliku zmije i lava.

Taj bog je verovatno starozavetni jevrejski Bog Jehova, koji se kod gnostika naziva Jaldabaot, Saklas ili Samael. On predstavlja prvog Arhonta i ujedno poglavara svih Arhonata, koje je stvorio, a zapravo emanirao, da mu služe.

Arhonti predstavljaju donje eone, naime sile koje su navodno zle, ali neretko predstavljaju i samo ustrojstvo kosmosa (Sunce, zvezde, dane u nedelji, 365 dana u godini, itd.). Protiv ovakvog antikosmičkog stava, prvi je ustao filozof Plotin rekavši: «Zaista je besmisleno da oni koji imaju telo kakvo ljudi imaju, i žudnje, boli i nagone, ne preziru vlastitu moć, već tvrde da oni mogu dohvatiti umstveno, a da na Suncu ne postoji moć koja je od njihove bestrpnija, uređenija i nepromenljivija, i da Sunce nije mudrije od nas koji smo nedavno rođeni i od toliko toga varani i sprečavani da dođemo do istine.» (Eneade I-II). Jaldabaot je znao samo za svoju majku  Sofiju, dok mu je ceo pleromatski svet ostao nepoznat. Zato je i rekao: «Ja sam ljubomorni Bog, pored mene nema drugoga!»  (Apokrif Jovanov). Dakle, bio je lišen spoznaje Oca (identična sudbina dodeljena je palim dušama u Danteovom Paklu), bio je zao jer nije posedovao gnozu, kažu gnostici.

Slavljena zmija

Svođenjem zla na neznanje, na misaoni element, kakvo uostalom i jeste dobro, jer dobro je gnoza (grč. spoznaja), autori gnostičkih jevanđelja čini se da zaobilaze postojanje metafizičkog zla i njegove suštine (bar za hrišćane)- greha pokvarene volje, koji je čin, a ne misao. To potvrđuje i njihova interpretacija stvarnja sveta i prvih ljudi Adama i Eve, što nas opet vraća u treću fazu gnostičkog mita. Gnostici, naime, ne priznaju Istočni greh kao greh, već ga slave. Verovatno je zato zmija u pojedinim gnostičkim sektama visoko poštovana, jer ona je ta koja čoveku donosi dragocenu spoznaju dobra i zla. Oni smatraju da istinski čovek ne bi smeo biti sazdan od tri prirode (duhovne, duševne i telesne), već samo od božanske Pneume (Duha). Za njih je telo okov od materije u koji su ga bacili zli Arhonti, da bi zarobili božansku iskru u čoveku (njegovu dušu) i oteli je za sebe. Gnostici ne žele da priznaju realnost ovoga sveta, on je puki privid, turobno mesto sazdano od zle materije, koja je po definicij podložna propadanju. Zato kod njih  dominira misaona nad osećajnom komponentom, za razliku od hrišćana, gde je vera stvar srca, a ne uma. Premda je kranji cilj svakoga ko je primio gnozu upravo gubitak svog posebnog uma i rastakanje ličnosti u božanstvu, veoma slično postizanju Nirvane u Budizmu, ali i aktivnom umu kod islamskih filozofa.

Na kraju, s obzirom na sve navedene implikacije, gnostički mit prevazilazi okvire mita i postaje pravo sredstvo spasenja putem spasonosnog saznanja, gnoze. Gnosticima je mit bio potreban kao prikladna forma izlaganja njihovog tajnog učenja.

Iako u mnogo čemu protivrečna, gnostička filozofija predstavlja izraz određenih arhetipskih sadržaja u čoveku, što je Jung nedvosmisleno pokazao, ali iznad svega ona izražava jedno realno osećanje koje postoji u duši svakog čoveka. To osećanje je osećanje nemoći da se prevaziđe prolaznost koja prati telesnu prirodu, nemogućnost da se pobedi smrt i propadanje, apsurd života koji je unapred osuđen na smrt samim sobom. Gnostici to jednostavno nisu mogli da prihvate. Zbog toga su živeli kao da tela uopšte i nemaju: s jedne strane podvrgnuti strogom  asketizmu, a s druge, uronjeni u totalni razvrat (Barbelognostici su se čak pričešćivali svojim genitalnim izlučevinama).

Ako hrišćani mogu u ime pravovernosti i anđeoskog milosrđa da čine najgora zverstva i zločine, gnostici valjda mogu da se pričešćuju na ovaj način, iako nikada u istoriji nisu stekli zvaničnu političku moć da bi se pokazali u krajnjoj praksi. Odjeci gnostičke filozofije itekako su prisutni u srednjovekovnoj i modernoj Evropi, kako u književnosti i filozofiji, tako i u dušama onih koji njome upravljaju, premda, naravno, ne u njenom izvornom obliku.

What Is a Gnostic?

by Stephan A. Hoeller

Gnosticism, they say, is on the upsurge...
So just what is it?

Are we witnessing a rediscovery of Gnosticism? To judge from the burgeoning new literature and the increased use of the terms "gnosis" and "Gnosticism" in popular publications, the answer would seem to be yes. Only twenty-five years ago, when one used the word "Gnostic," it was very likely to be misunderstood as "agnostic," and thus have one's statement turned into its exact opposite. Such misapprehensions are far less likely today. Nevertheless, increased academic attention (beginning with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi scriptures in 1945) and the ensuing popular interest have produced a confusion of tongues which is anything but helpful for the sincere inquirer into matters Gnostic. It is often difficult even to tell what is meant by the word.

The difficulty in defining Gnosticism is not entirely of recent origin. As early as 1910, a small book was published in London that in many ways foreshadowed current trends, including the difficulties in definition. The title of the work was Gnosticism: The Coming Apostasy; the author, a certain D.M. Panton, was an anxious defender of Christian orthodoxy, which he felt was menaced by an emerging Gnostic revival. Gnosticism, Panton wrote, had surfaced in the twentieth century in the forms of Theosophy, Christian Science, some forms of spiritualism, and in what was called the "New Theology," which had been introduced primarily by German writers on religion. (A biography of Marcion by theologian Adolf von Harnack created much interest and controversy at that time.) While earlier crypto-Gnostics, such as Emanuel Swedenborg, William Blake, George Fox, and Elias Hicks camouflaged their heretical beliefs, Panton argued, twentieth-century Gnostics no longer bothered with concealment. The gnosticizing movements of the early twentieth century, wrote Panton, were "frankly and jubilantly Gnostic"; their thought and their movements carried within them the "throbbing heart of Gnosticism, perhaps the most dreaded foe the Christian faith ever confronted."

In some ways Panton's anti-Gnostic tirades have an advantage over much of the more recent literature, for Panton still possessed a clear understanding of what constitutes Gnosticism. Such is not the case today. If we contrast these early-twentieth-century analyses with some current ones, we may recognize how unclear our understanding has become. In a European publication concerned with contemporary aspects of Gnosticism, Ioan Culianu writes:

Once I believed that Gnosticism was a well-defined phenomenon belonging to the religious history of Late Antiquity. Of course, I was ready to accept the idea of different prolongations of ancient Gnosis, and even that of spontaneous generation of views of the world in which, at different times, the distinctive features of Gnosticism occur again.

I was soon to learn however, that I was a naïf indeed. Not only Gnosis was gnostic, but the Catholic authors were gnostic, the Neoplatonic too, Reformation was gnostic, Communism was gnostic, Nazism was gnostic, liberalism, existentialism and psychoanalysis were gnostic too, modern biology was gnostic, Blake, Yeats, Kafka were gnostic…. I learned further that science is gnostic and superstition is gnostic…Hegel is gnostic and Marx is gnostic; all things and their opposite are equally gnostic. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - 1}

At least one circumstance emerges from this statement that is widely overlooked in America. In Europe "Gnosis" and "Gnosticism" are almost always used interchangeably. The suggestion that term "gnosis" ought to be used to describe a state of consciousness, while "Gnosticism" should denote the Gnostic system, has never caught on. The use of such classical Gnosticism of Valentinus, Basilides, et al., persists in European literature, including the writings of such scholars as Gilles Quispel, k*rt Rudolph, and Giovanni Filoramo (to mention some of the most recent ones). It is true that the late Robert McLachlan put forth a proposal to use these terms otherwise, but current usage in Europe has not followed it.

It is evident that a word used in such contradictory ways has lost its meaning. No wonder GNOSIS writer Charles Coulombe despairs over the situation when writing recently in a Catholic publication:

In reality, "Gnosticism," like "Protestantism," is a word that has lost most of its meaning. Just as we would need to know whether a "Protestant" writer is Calvinist, Lutheran, Anabaptist, or whatever in order to evaluate him properly, so too the "Gnostic" must be identified. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - 2}

A Political Confusion

One of the most confusing voices comes from the discipline of political science. In his Walgreen Lectures at the University of Chicago in 1951, émigré scholar Eric Voegelin rose to the defense of what he called the "classic and Christian tradition" against what he perceived as the "growth of Gnosticism." This opening salvo was followed by such books as The New Science of Politics, the multivolume Order and History, and Science, Politics, and Gnosticism. Voegelin became a prophet of a new theory of history, in which Gnosticism played a most nefarious role. All modern totalitarian ideologies were in some way spiritually related to Gnosticism, said Voegelin. Marxists, Nazis, and just about everybody else the good professor found reprehensible were in reality Gnostics, engaged in "immanentizing the eschaton" by reconstituting society into a heaven on earth. Since Gnostics did not accept the conventional Christian eschaton of heaven and hell, Voegelin concluded that they must be engaged in a millenarian revolutionizing of earthly existence. At the same time, Voegelin was bound to admit that the Gnostics regarded the earthly realm as generally hopeless and unredeemable. One wonders how the unredeemable earthly kingdom could be turned into the "immanentized eschaton" of an earthly utopia. That Voegelin's new Gnostics had no knowledge of or sympathy with historical Gnosticism did not bother him either. Gnostics they were, and that was that.

Voegelin's confusion was made worse by a number of conservative political thinkers, mainly with Catholic connections. Thomas Molnar, Tilo Schabert, and Steven A. McKnight followed Voegelin's theories despite their obvious inconsistencies. In Molnar's view, Gnostics were not only responsible for all modern utopianism, but also for the inordinate attachment of modern people to science and technology. The scientific world view, said these folk, is in fact a Gnostic world view, and it is responsible for treating humans as machines and for making societies into machinelike collectives.

The politicized view of Gnosticism continues to have its adherents, but these are increasingly recruited from the lunatic fringe. Gnostics are still represented as dangerous subversives in pulp magazines and obscure conspiracy pamphlets "exposing" Freemasons, Satanists, and other pests. Meanwhile, respectable conservative thinkers have dropped the Gnostic issue. Some, like scholar and former U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa, have subjected Voegelin and his theories to severe criticism and ridicule.

Traditionalist Difficulties

Another sometimes confusing voice comes from writers who are bent on proving that within the existing major religions a secret tradition of gnosis may be found which is not identical to the "heretical" Gnosticism of the early Christian centuries. In his 1947 work The Perennial Philosophy, Aldous Huxley promulgated a kind of gnosis that was in effect a mystery reserved for elites, revealed at the dawn of history and handed down through various religious traditions, where it still maintains itself in spite of its ostensible incompatibility with the official dogmas of those traditions. With this view, Huxley approximated the more radical position held by Traditionalists such as René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon.

Huxley, on the other hand, never passed judgment on anyone who called himself a Gnostic. One could only wish the same could be said of other Traditionalists. Followers of Guénon (who, born a Catholic, converted to Islam in a somewhat untraditional manner) often castigate the early Gnostic teachers in a manner reminiscent of the more extreme ancient polemicists like Irenaeus or Tertullian. The Traditionalists' division of Gnostic writers into "false Gnostics" and "authentic Gnostics" reflects standards that are nothing if not arbitrary; contemporary research indicates that during the first three of four centuries A.D. there was as yet no true orthodoxy and thus no heresy either. Instead, many opinions on religious matters, including gnosis, flourished side by side. Certainly there were disagreements, but to arbitrarily extrapolate standards of falsity and authenticity from these polemics does not seem justified.

Academic Ambiguities

The 1988 edition of The Nag Hammadi Library contains a lengthy afterword entitled "The Modern Relevance of Gnosticism." ^{http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - 3} Its author, Richard Smith, ostensibly reviews the numerous developments in Western culture which appear to be related to Gnosticism. One would hope that here at last we might find a definition of true Gnosticism and a list of modern writers and thinkers who might appear as its representatives. Unfortunately this is not the case.

Smith lists a number of important figures of modern culture from the eighteenth century onward who were sympathetic to Gnosticism. Reading this afterword, however, one gets the impression that few of these seminal figures possessed an adequate definition of Gnosticism, and that they thus more often than not misused and misappropriated the term. The eighteenth-century historian Edward Gibbon, for example, is accused of a "mischievous lie" in referring to the Gnostics in complimentary terms. (Admittedly Gibbon did not share the low esteem in which the Church Fathers held Gnostics, but does this make him a liar?) And the Gnostic and Manichaean sympathies of Voltaire are represented as being motivated by his opposition to churchly authority. But could the great philosophé have had other reasons for his views? It is well known that Voltaire was an ardent Freemason, and he might have received favorable information about Gnostics through the esoteric currents flowing in the secret fraternities of his time. Maybe he was privy to knowledge unknown to Smith.

In the same vein, Smith implies that C.G. Jung appropriated Gnosticism by turning it into psychological theory. "Jung takes the entire dualist myth and locates it within the psyche," Smith writes. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - 4} Personally I have devoted the major part of my life to exploring the relationship of Jung's thought to Gnosticism, so such statements touch a nerve.

Jung was not only interested in the Gnostics, but he considered them the discoverers and certainly the most important forerunners of depth psychology. The association between Jung's psychology and Gnosticism is profound, and its scope is increasingly revealed with the passage of time and the wider availability of the Nag Hammadi scriptures. My studies have convinced me that Jung did not intend to locate the content of Gnostic teachings in the psyche pure and simple. To say that Gnosticism is "nothing but" psychology would have horrified Jung, for he opposed the concept of "nothing but." What made Jung's view radically different from those of his predecessors was simply this: he believed that Gnostic teachings and myths originated in the personal psychospiritual experience of the Gnostic sages. What originates in the psyche bears the imprint of the psyche. Hence the close affinity between Gnosticism and depth psychology. Jung's view may thus be called an interpolation, but not an appropriation. The need for definitions appears greater than ever in the light of such controversies.

Psychological and Existentialist Models

The Italian scholar Giovanni Filoramo calls attention to the fact that the Nag Hammadi scriptures were favorably received by a wide public in part because "certain areas of the cultural panorama showed a disposition, a peculiar sensitivity to the…texts,…which dealt with a phenomenon that they themselves had in some way helped to keep alive." ^{http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - 5}

One of the persons who kept the Gnostic phenomenon alive was C.G. Jung's close associate, the Gnostic scholar Gilles Quispel, who labored long and hard on relating the ancient gnosis of Valentinus and other teachers to the modern gnosis of analytical psychology. He saw the Gnostic effort as involving deep insight into the ontological self, and thus as analogous to the best in depth psychology. Quispel's major work on the subject, Gnosis als Weltreligion ("Gnosis as a World Religion," published in 1972), explains in detail the relationship of Jung's model to Gnostic teachings. Quispel, like Jung himself, did not reduce Gnostic teachings to depth psychology, but rather pointed to depth psychology as a key to understanding Gnosticism.

Another key figure in the reevaluation of ancient Gnosticism was Hans Jonas. A pupil of existentialist philosopher Martin Heidegger in the 1930s, Jonas turned his attention to the wisdom of the Gnostics, and discovered in them an ancient relative of existential philosophy. Existentialism's pessimism about earthly life and high regard for experience as against theory thus found a forebear and analogue. Although critical of the Gnostics' apparent "nihilism," Jonas was, along with Jung, one of the most important figures to bring Gnostic teachings into modern perspective.

The linkage effected by Jung and Jonas between Gnosticism in the past and living philosophies in the present was of crucial importance and came very close to supplying gnosis and Gnosticism with vital, living definitions. The questions posed (and answered) by the ancient Gnostics revealed themselves now, not as outlandish and bizarre, but as earlier discussions of issues addressed in more recent times by Freud, Jung, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and many others.

Toward Definition

The search for definitions is never easy, particularly in such fields as the social sciences. In these disciplines much attention must be given to the historical context in which beliefs and actions unfold. Crucial differences and similarities in nuance, tone, and subtleties of mood are more important here than hard and fast definitions. The debate about Gnosticism, it would seem, turns on such nuances, and it may well be that not much can be resolved by definitions. Nevertheless, the present chaotic conditions warrant an attempt.

In 1966, a distinguished assembly of scholars convened in Messina, Italy, for the purpose of arriving at some useful definitions of Gnosticism. The results of this gathering were not encouraging. The scholars proposed restricting the use of the term "Gnosticism" to certain second-century "heretical" movements, while the broader term "gnosis" was to be used to refer to "knowledge of the divine mysteries for an elite." While a useful attempt, it did not manage to clear up the confusion.

The difficulties in pinning down a definition of Gnosticism are intimately connected with the controversy about its origins. Was it indeed no more than a heretical offshoot, an eccentric and aberrant branch of Christianity, or was it the latest expression of a long, mostly hidden tradition that had existed for centuries before the Christian era? No one has answered these questions with final authority.

To understand Gnosticism, said Hans Jonas, one needs something very much like a musical ear. Such a Gnostic "musical ear" is not come by easily. One person who seemingly possesses it is Professor Clark Emery of the University of Miami. In a small work on William Blake, Emery summarizes twelve points on which Gnostics tended to agree. Nowhere in the current literature have I found anything else so concise and accurate in describing the normative characteristics of the Gnostic mythos. Hence I shall present it here as a suggested collection of criteria that one might apply in determining what Gnosticism is. The following characteristics may be considered normative for all Gnostic teachers and groups in the era of classical Gnosticism; thus one who adheres to some or all of them today might properly be called a Gnostic:

• The Gnostics posited an original spiritual unity that came to be split into a plurality.

• As a result of the precosmic division the universe was created. This was done by a leader possessing inferior spiritual powers and who often resembled the Old Testament Jehovah.

• A female emanation of God was involved in the cosmic creation (albeit in a much more positive role than the leader).

• In the cosmos, space and time have a malevolent character and may be personified as demonic beings separating man from God.

• For man, the universe is a vast prison. He is enslaved both by the physical laws of nature and by such moral laws as the Mosaic code.

• Mankind may be personified as Adam, who lies in the deep sleep of ignorance, his powers of spiritual self-awareness stupefied by materiality.

• Within each natural man is an "inner man," a fallen spark of the divine substance. Since this exists in each man, we have the possibility of awakening from our stupefaction.

• What effects the awakening is not obedience, faith, or good works, but knowledge.

• Before the awakening, men undergo troubled dreams.

• Man does not attain the knowledge that awakens him from these dreams by cognition but through revelatory experience, and this knowledge is not information but a modification of the sensate being.

• The awakening (i.e., the salvation) of any individual is a cosmic event.

• Since the effort is to restore the wholeness and unity of the Godhead, active rebellion against the moral law of the Old Testament is enjoined upon every man. http://www.gnosis.org/whatisgnostic.htm#notes - ⁶

The noted sociologist Max Weber wrote in his book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that "the perfect conceptual definition cannot stand at the beginning, but must be left until the end of the inquiry." That is what we have done in the present inquiry also. Emery's twelve points are in every consistent with the proposal set out by the colloquium at Messina. Second-century Gnosticism is taken as the principal model for all of these definitions, a practice that appears to be sensible. Nor is any separate recognition given to any so-called "orthodox gnosis" that is occasionally alluded to, more as a figure of speech than as any discernible historical phenomenon, in the writings of some of the Church Fathers who were contemporaneous with the Gnostics. It would seem that whatever is excluded by Emery's definitions and the protocol of Messina may be more profitably considered from doctrinal perspectives other than Gnostic.

Whatever the value of this line of inquiry, at least it calls attention to definitions that are historically unimpeachable and terminologically definite. This is much more than the current literature - especially of the semipopular variety - possesses. Divisive categorizations that separate "false Gnostics" from "authentic Gnostics," especially on the basis of orthodoxies which were never relevant to either Gnosticism or the Gnostics, may have to be discarded in the light of such definitions. The random projection of contemporary fads and enthusiasms (such as feminism and the Gaia hypothesis) onto Gnosticism might also have to be controlled. But all of this seems like a small price to pay for some order and clarity in this field. We might have to take to heart the ironic admonition of Alice in Wonderland:

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said,…"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

On the Trail of the Winged God

Hermes and Hermeticism Throughout the Ages

by Stephan A. Hoeller

There are few names to which more diverse persons and disciplines lay claim than the term "Hermetic." Alchemists ancient and contemporary apply the adjective "Hermetic" to their art, while magicians attach the name to their ceremonies of evocation and invocation. Followers of Meister Eckhart, Raymond Lull, Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, and most recently Valentin Tomberg are joined by academic scholars of esoterica, all of whom attach the word "Hermetic" to their activities.

Who, then, was Hermes, and what may be said of the philosophy or religion that is connected with him? The early twentieth-century scholar Walter Scott, in his classic edition of the Hermetic texts, writes of a legend preserved by the Renaissance writer Vergicius:

They say that this Hermes left his own country and traveled all over the world…; and that he tried to teach men to revere and worship one God alone, …the demiurgus and genetor [begetter] of all things; …and that he lived a very wise and pious life, occupied in intellectual contemplation…, and giving no heed to the gross things of the material world…; and that having returned to his own country, he wrote at the time many books of mystical theology and philosophy. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 1}

Until relatively recently, no one had a clear picture of either the authorship or the context of the mysterious writings ascribed to Hermes. Descriptions such as the one above are really no more than a summary of the ideal laid down in the "Hermetic" writings. The early Christian Fathers, in time, mostly held that Hermes was a great sage who lived before Moses and that he was a pious and wise man who received revelations from God that were later fully explained by Christianity. None mentioned that he was a Greek god.

The Greek Hermes

The British scholar R.F. Willetts wrote that "in many ways, Hermes is the most sympathetic, the most baffling, the most confusing, the most complex, and therefore the most Greek of all the Olympian gods." http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - ² If Hermes is the god of the mind, then these qualities appear in an even more meaningful light. For is the mind not the most baffling, confusing, and at the same time the most beguiling, of all the attributes of life?

The name Hermes appears to have originated in the word for "stone heap." Probably since prehistoric times there existed in Crete and in other Greek regions a custom or erecting a herma or hermaion consisting of an upright stone surrounded at its base by a heap of smaller stones. Such monuments were used to serve as boundaries or as landmarks for wayfarers.

A mythological connection existed between these simple monuments and the deity named Hermes. When Hermes killed the many-eyed monster Argus, he was brought to trial by the gods. They voted for Hermes' innocence, each casting a vote by throwing a small stone at his feet so that a heap of stones grew up around him.

Hermes became best known as the swift messenger of the gods. Euripides, in his prologue to the play Ion, has Hermes introduce himself as follows:

Atlas, who wears on back of bronze the ancient
Abode of the gods in heaven, had a daughter
Whose name was Maia, born of a goddess:
She lay with Zeus, and bore me, Hermes,
Servant of the immortals.

Hermes is thus of a double origin. His grandfather is Atlas, the demigod who holds up heaven, but Maia, his mother, already has a goddess as her mother, while Hermes' father, Zeus, is of course the highest of the gods. It is tempting to interpret this as saying that from worldly toil (Atlas), with a heavy infusion of divine inspiration, comes forth consciousness, as symbolized by Hermes.

Versatility and mutability are Hermes' most prominent characteristics. His specialties are eloquence and invention (he invented the lyre). He is the god of travel and the protector of sacrifices; he is also god of commerce and good luck. The common quality in all of these is again consciousness, the agile movement of mind that goes to and fro, joining humans and gods, assisting the exchange of ideas and commercial goods. Consciousness has a shadow side, however: Hermes is also noted for cunning and for fraud, perjury, and theft.

The association of Hermes with theft become evident in the pseudo-Homeric Hymn to Hermes, which tells in great detail how the young god, barely risen from his cradle, carries off some of Apollo's prize oxen. The enraged Apollo denounces Hermes to Zeus but is mollified by the gift of the lyre, which the young Hermes has just invented by placing strings across the shell of a tortoise. That the larcenous trickster god is the one who bestows the instrument of poetry upon Apollo may be a point of some significance. Art is bestowed not by prosaic rectitude, but by the freedom of intuition, a function not bound by earthly rules.

While Hermes is regarded as one of the earliest and most primitive gods of the Greeks, he enjoys so much subsequent prominence that he must be recognized as an archetype devoted to mediating between, and unifying, the opposites. This foreshadows his later role as master magician and alchemist, as he was regarded both in Egypt and in Renaissance Europe.

Mediterranean Hermes

One admirable quality of the ancient Greeks was the universality of their theological vision. Unlike their Semitic counterparts, the Greeks claimed no uniqueness for their deities but freely acknowledged that the Olympians often had exact analogues in the gods of other nations.

This was particularly true of Egypt, whose gods the Greeks revered as the prototypes of their own. It was a truth frequently recognized by the cultured elite of Greek society that some of the Egyptian gods, such as Isis, were of such great stature that they united within themselves a host of Greek deities.

The Romans, who were fully aware of the fact that their gods were but rebaptized Greek deities, followed the example of their mentors. As the Roman Empire extended itself to occupy the various Mediterranean lands, including Egypt, the ascendancy of the archetypes of some of the more prominent Egyptian gods became evident. Here we are faced with the controversial phenomenon of syncretism, which plays a vital role in the new manifestation of Hermes in the last centuries before Christ and in the early centuries of the Christian era.

During this period, the Mediterranean world was undergoing a remarkable religious development. The old state religions had lost their hold on many people. In their stead a large number of often-interrelated religions, philosophies, and rites had arisen, facilitated by the political unity imposed by the Roman Empire.

This new ecumenism of the spirit was one that we might justly admire. Though often derided as mere syncretism by later writers, it possessed many features to which various ecumenicists aspire even today. It is by no means impossible that the Mediterranean region of the late Hellenistic period was in fact on its way toward a certain kind of religious unity. The world religion that might conceivably have emerged would have been much more sophisticated than the accusation of syncretism would have us believe. Far from being a patchwork of incompatible elements, this emerging Mediterranean spirituality bore the hallmarks of a profound mysticism, possessing a psychological wisdom still admired in our own day by such figures as C.G. Jung and Mircea Eliade.

An important feature of this era was the rise of a new worship of Hermes. Proceeding from the three principal Egyptian archetypes of divinity, we find three great forms of initiatory religion spreading along the shores of the Mediterranean: the cults of the Mother Goddess Isis, the Victim God Osiris, and the Wisdom God Hermes, all of which appeared under various guises.

Of these three we shall concern ourselves here with Hermes. It was during this period that the swift god of consciousness took his legendary winged sandals and crossed the sea to Egypt in order to become the Greco-Egyptian Thrice-Greatest Hermes.

Hermes of Egypt

The Greek Hermes found his analogue in Egypt as the ancient Wisdom God Thoth (sometimes spelled Thouth or Tahuti). This god was worshiped in his principal cult location, Chmun, known also as the "City of the Eight," called Greek Hermopolis. There is evidence that this location was a center for the worship of this deity at least as early as 3000 B.C.

Thoth played a part in many of the myths of Pharaonic Egypt: he played a role in the creation myth, he was recorder of the gods, and he was the principal pleader for the soul at the judgment of the dead. It was he who invented writing. He wrote all the ancient texts, including the most esoteric ones, including The Book of Breathings, which taught humans how to become gods. He was connected with the moon and thus was considered ruler of the night. Thoth was also the teacher and helper of the ancient Egyptian trinity of Isis, Osiris, and Horus; it was under his instructions that Isis worked her sacred love magic whereby she brought the slain Osiris back to life.

Most importantly, perhaps, for our purposes, Thoth acted as an emissary between the contending armies of Horus and Seth and eventually came to negotiate the peace treaty between these two gods. His role as a mediator between the opposites is thus made evident, perhaps prefiguring the role of the alchemical Mercury as the "medium of the conjunction."

Thoth's animal form is that of the ibis, with its long, slightly curved beak: statues of Thoth often portray a majestic human wearing the mask of head of this bird; others simply display the ibis itself.

It was to this powerful god that the Egyptian Hermeticists of the second and third centuries A.D. joined the image and especially the name of the Greek Hermes. From this time onward the name "Hermes" came to denote neither Thoth nor Hermes proper, but a new archetypal figure, Hermes Trismegistus, who combined the features of both.

By the time his Egyptian followers came to establish their highly secretive communities, this Hermes underwent yet another modification, this time from the Jewish tradition. The presence of large numbers of Jews in Egypt in this period, many of whom were oriented toward Hellenistic thought, accounts for this additional element. In many of the Hermetic writings, Hermes appears less as an Egyptian or Greek god and more as a mysterious prophet of the kind one finds in Jewish prophetic literature, notably the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Esdras, and 2 Enoch. Still, when all is said and done, the Jewish element in the Hermetic writings is not very pronounced. The Hermes that concerns us is primarily Egyptian, to a lesser degree Greek, and to a very slight extent Jewish in character.

Hermetic Communities

Who, then, actually wrote the "books of Hermes," which, since their rediscovery in the fifteenth century, have played such a significant role in our culture? The writings are all anonymous: their mythic author is considered to be Hermes himself. The reasoning behind this pseudonymous approach is simple. Hermes is Wisdom, and thus anything written through the inspiration of true wisdom is in actuality written by Hermes. The human scribe does not matter; certainly his name is of no significance.

Customs of this sort have not been uncommon in mystical literature. The Kabbalistic text known as the Zohar, currently believed to have been written in the medieval period, claims to be the work of Shimon bar Yohai, a rabbi of the second century A.D. Two of the best-known Christian mystical classics, The Cloud of Unknowing and Theologia Germanica, were written anonymously.

The members of the Hermetic communities were people who, brought up in the immemorial Egyptian religious tradition, offered their own version of the religion of gnosis, which others propounded in a manner more appropriate to the psyches of other national backgrounds, notably Hebrew, Syrian, or Mesopotamian. Sir W.M.F. Petrie ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 3} presents us with a study of such Pagan monks and hermits who gathered together in the deserts of Egypt and other lands. He tells us of the monks' attention to cleanliness, their silence during meals, their seclusion and meditative piety. It would seem that the Hermeticists were recluses of this kind. Unlike the Gnostics, who were mostly living secular lives in cities, the Hermeticists followed a lifestyle similar to the kind Josephus attributes to the Essenes.

When it came to beliefs, it is likely that the Hermeticists and Gnostics were close spiritual relatives. The two schools had a great deal in common, their principal difference being that the Hermeticists looked to the archetypal figure of Hermes as the embodiment of salvific teaching and initiation, while the Gnostics revered the more recent savior figure known as Jesus in a similar manner. Both groups were singularly devoted to gnosis, which they understood to be the experience of liberating interior knowledge; both looked upon embodiment as a limitation that led to unconsciousness, from which only gnosis can liberate the human spirit. Most of the Hermetic teachings closely correspond to fundamental ideas of the Gnostics. There were also some, mostly minor, divergences between the two, to which we shall refer later.

Judging by their writings and by the repute they enjoyed among their contemporaries, the members of the Hermetic communities were inspired persons who firmly believed that they were in touch with the Source of all truth, the very embodiment of divine Wisdom himself.

Indeed there are many passages in the Hermetic writings in which we can still perceive the vibrant inspiration, the exaltation of spirit, in the words whereby they attempt to describe the wonders disclosed to their mystic vision. Like the Gnostics, of whom Jung said that they worked with original, compelling images of the deep unconscious, the Hermeticists experienced powerful and extraordinary insights to which they tried to give expression in their writings. Intense feeling generated by personal spiritual experience pervades most of the Hermetic documents.

The Hermetic Curriculum

Until comparatively recently there was very little information available concerning the method of spiritual progress that the Hermeticists may have followed. The Nag Hammadi Library, discovered in 1945, contains at least one scripture whose content is unmistakably Hermetic. This is Tractate 6 of Codex VI, whose title is usually translated as The Discourse on the Eight and the Ninth. On the basis of this discourse, one of its early translators suggested a scheme of progress that was followed by some of the schools of Hermeticists. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 4}

A Hermetic catechumen would begin with a process of conversion, induced by such activities as reading some of the less technical Hermetic literature or listening to a public discourse. A period of probation, including instruction received in a public setting, was required before progressing to the next stage.

This phase would be characterized by a period of philosophical and catechetical studies based on certain Hermetic works. (The Asclepius and the Kore Kosmou may be examples of such study material.) This instruction was imparted to small groups.

The next step entailed a progress through the Seven Spheres or Hebdomad, conducted in a tutorial format, one student at a time. This seems to have been a process of an experiential nature, aided by inspiring topical discourses. In this progression, the candidate is envisioned as beginning his journey from earth and ascending through the planets to a region of freedom from immediate cosmic influences. (The planets were regarded mostly as influences of restriction, which the ascending spirit must overcome.) One may note a close resemblance of this gradual ascent to similar ascensions outlined in various Gnostic sources, as well as to the later Kabbalistic patchwork on the Tree of Life.

The final step was what may be called the Mystery Liturgy of Hermes Trismegistus, of which The Discourse of the Eighth and the Ninth is often regarded as a good example. Here the Hermeticist is spiritually reborn in a transcendental region beyond the seven planets. His status is now that of a pneumatic, or man of the spirit. (Note once again the similarity with Gnosticism.) This level entails an experience of a very profound, initiatory change of consciousness wherein the initiate becomes one with the deeper self resident in his soul, which is a portion of the essence of God. This experience takes place in a totally private setting. The only persons present are the initiate and the initiator (called "son" and "father" in this text). The liturgy takes the form of a dialogue between these two.

The Hermeticists had their own sacraments as well. These appear to have consisted primarily of a form of baptism with water and an anointing resembling "a baptism and a chrism" as mentioned in the Gnostic Gospel of Philip. The Corpus Hermeticum mentions an anointing with "ambrosial water" and a self-administered baptism in a sacred vessel, the krater, sent down by Hermes from the heavenly realms.

The Hermetic Writings

The original number of Hermetic writings must have been considerable. A good many of these were lost during the systematic destruction of non-Christian literature that took place between the fourth and sixth centuries A.D. Ancient writers often indicate the existence of such works: in the first century A.D., Plutarch refers to Hermes the Thrice-Greatest; the third-century Church Father Clement of Alexandria says that the books of Hermes treat of Egyptian religion; ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 5} and Tertullian, Iamblichus, and Porphyry all seem to be acquainted with Hermetic literature. Scott shows how the ancient Middle Eastern city of Harran harbored both Hermeticists and Hermetic books into the Muslim period. http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - ⁶

A thousand years later, in 1460, the ruler of Florence, Cosimo de' Medici, acquired several previously lost Hermetic texts that had been found in the Byzantine Empire. These works were thought to be the work of a historical figure named Hermes Trismegistus who was considered to be a contemporary of Moses. Translated by the learned and enthusiastic Marsilio Ficino and others, the Hermetic books soon gained the attention of an intelligentsia that was starved for a more creative approach to spirituality than had been hitherto available.

The most extensive collection of Hermetic writings is the Corpus Hermeticum, a set of about seventeen short Greek texts. Another collection as made by a scholar named John Stobaeus in the firth century A.D. Two other, longer texts stand alone. The first is the Asclepius, preserved in a Latin translation dating probably from the third century A.D. The second takes the form of a dialogue between Isis and Horus and has the unusual title of Kore Kosmou, which means "daughter of the world."

The reaction of the Christian establishment to these writings was ambivalent. It is true that they were never condemned and were even revered by many prominent ecclesiastics. An authoritative volume of the Hermetic books was printed in Ferrara in 1593, for example. It was edited by one Cardinal Patrizzi, who recommended that these works should replace Aristotle as the basis for Christian philosophy and should be diligently studied in schools and monasteries. The mind boggles at the turn Western culture might have taken had Hermetic teachings replaced Aristotelian theology of Thomas Aquinas as the normative doctrine of the Catholic Church!

Such, however, was not to be. One of the chief propagandists of Hermeticism, the brilliant friar Giordano Bruno, was burnt at the stake as a heretic in 1600, and although others continued with their enthusiasm for the fascinating teachings of the books of Hermes, the suspicions and doubts of the narrow-minded continued to dampen any general ardor.

By the seventeenth century, the Hermetic books had enjoyed intermittent popularity in Europe for some 150 years. The coming of the Protestant Reformation and the ensuing religious strife, however, stimulated a tendency toward rationalistic orthodoxy in all quarter. Another factor was the work of the scholar Isaac Casaubon, who used internal evidence in the texts to prove that they had been written, not by a contemporary of Moses, but early in the Christian era. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 7}

By the eighteenth century, the Hermetic teachings were totally eclipsed, and the new scholarship, which prided itself on its opposition to everything it called "superstition," took a dim view of this ancient fountainhead of mystical and occult lore. There wasn't even a critical, academically respectable edition of the Corpus Hermeticum until Walter Scott's Hermetica appeared in 1924.

If one needs an example of how egregiously academic scholarship can err and then persist in its errors, one need only contemplate the "official" scholarly views of the Hermetic books over the 150-year period up to the middle of the twentieth century. The general view was that these writings were Neoplatonic or anti-Christian forgeries, of no value to the study of religion. By the middle of the nineteenth century, such scholars as Gustave Parthey ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 8} and Louis Menard ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 9} began to raise objections to the forgery theory, but it took another 50 years for their views to gain a hearing.

The Occult Connection and the Hermetic Renaissance

Although the Hermetic system has undeniably influenced much of the best of Christian thought, the most abiding impact of Hermeticism on Western culture came about by way of the heterodox mystical, or occult, tradition. Renaissance occultism, with its alchemy, astrology, ceremonial magic, and occult medicine, became saturated with the teachings of the Hermetic books. This content has remained a permanent part of the occult transmissions of the West, and, along with Gnosticism and Neoplatonism, represents the foundation of all the major Western occult currents. Hermetic elements are demonstrably present in the school of Jacob Boehme and in the Rosicrucian and Masonic movements, for example.

It was not long before this tradition, wedded to secret orders of initiates and their arcane truths, gave way to a more public transmission of their teachings. This occurred initially by way of the work of H.P. Blavatsky and her Theosophical Society in the late nineteenth century.

G.R.S. Mead, a young, educated English Theosophist who became a close associate of Mme. Blavatsky in the last years of her life, was the main agent of the revival of Gnostic and Hermetic wisdom among the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century occultists. Mead first became known for his translation of the great Gnostic work Pistis Sophia, which appeared in 1890-91. In 1906 he published the three volumes of Thrice Greatest Hermes, in which he collected all the then-available Hermetic documents while adding insightful commentaries of his own. ^{http://www.gnosis.org/hermes.htm#notes - 10} This volume was followed by other, smaller works of a similar order. Mead's impact on the renewal of interest in Hermeticism and Gnosticism in our century should not be underestimated.

A half-century later, we find another seminal figure who effectively bridged the gap between the occult and the academic. The British scholar Dame Frances A. Yates may be considered the true inaugurator of the modern Hermetic renaissance. Beginning with a work on Giordano Bruno and continuing with a number of others, Yates not only proved the immense influence of Hermeticism on the medieval Renaissance but showed the connections between Hermetic currents and later developments, including the Rosicrucian Enlightenment - itself the title of one of her books.

While some decades ago it might have appeared that the line of transmission extending from Greco-Egyptian wisdom might come to an end, today the picture appears more hopeful. The discovery and translation of the Nag Hammadi Library generated a great interest in matters Gnostic that does not seem to have abated with the passage of time. Because of the close affinity of the Hermetic writings to the Gnostic ones, the present interest in Gnosticism extends to Hermeticism as well. Most collections of Gnostic scriptures published today include some Hermetic material.

Gnosticism and Hermeticism flourished in the same period; they are equally concerned with personal knowledge of God and the soul, and equally emphatic that the soul can only escape from its bondage to material existence if it attains to true ecstatic understanding (gnosis). It was once fashionable to characterize Hermeticism as "optimistic" in contract to Gnostic "pessimism," but such differences are currently being stressed less than they had been. The Nag Hammadi scriptures have brought to light a side of Gnosticism that joins it more closely to Hermeticism than many would have thought possible.

There are apparent contradictions, not only between Hermetic and Gnostic writings, but within the Hermetic materials themselves. Such contradictions loom large when one contemplates these systems from the outside, but they can be much more easily reconciled by one who steps inside the systems and views them from within. One possible key to such paradoxes is the likelihood that the words in these scriptures were the results of transcendental states of consciousness experienced by their writers. Such words were never meant to define supernatural matters, but only to intimate their impact upon experience.

From a contemporary view, the figure of Hermes, both in its Greek and its Egyptian manifestations, stands as an archetype of transformation through reconciliation of the opposites. (Certainly Jung and other archetypally oriented psychologists viewed Hermes in this light.) If we are inclined to this view, we should rejoice over the renewed interest in Hermes and his timeless gnosis. If we conjure up the famed image of the swift god, replete with winged helmet, sandals, and caduceus, we might still be able to ask him to reconcile the divisions and contradictions of this lower realm in the embrace of enlightened consciousness. And since, like all gods, he is immortal, he might be able to fulfill our request as he did for his devotees of old!

The Genesis Factor

by Stephan A. Hoeller

The following article was published in Quest, September 1997. It is presented here with permission of the author.

SOME YEARS AGO, Elaine H. Pagels, the noted religious historian, had the importance of the Book of Genesis brought to her attention in a most unusual manner. She was in Khartoum, in the African Sudan, holding a discussion with the then foreign minister of that country, who had written a book on the myths of his people. A prominent member of the Dinka tribe, her host told her how the creation myth of his people relates to the whole social, political, and religious culture in that part of the Sudan.

Shortly after this conversation, Pagels was reading a Time magazine in which several letters to the editor took issue with a particular article on changing social mores in America. To her surprise, four of the six letters mentioned the story of Adam and Eve--how God created the first human pair "in the beginning," and what kind of behavior was therefore right or wrong for men and women today. Stimulated by her conversation in Africa, she quickly recognized that many people, even those who do not literally believe it, still return to the archaic story of creation as a frame of reference when faced with challenges to their traditional values.

Pagels realized that, like creation stories of other cultures, the Genesis story addresses profound and basic questions. Americans and Dinka tribesmen are not so different after all; both look to their creation stories when attempting to answer such questions as, what is the purpose of human beings on earth? How do we differ from each other and from animals? Why do we suffer? Why do we die?

Recent events on the intellectual scene have served to affirm these insights. Autumn of 1996 brought a considerable revival of interest in Genesis. Foreshadowed by a series of semi-informal conversations at Manhattan's Jewish Theological Seminary, led by Rabbi Burton Visotzky, the major event of this revival became a much publicized television series entitled "A Living Conversation," devoted entirely to the Book of Genesis. Hosted by Bill Moyers, himself an ordained Southern Baptist minister who had later shifted his allegiance to the more liberal United Church of Christ, the series raised high expectations in many quarters. A number of recent books have also dealt with the Genesis story.

Robert Alter, one of the most recent translators of Genesis, said: "Moyers has hit upon an idea whose time has come. At this moment of post-cold war confusion about where we're going as a civilization, with all kinds of murky religious ferment, it makes sense to do some stocktaking.  Let's go back to the book that started the whole shebang."

Moyers's panelists included Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, a Hindu, a Buddhist, and several agnostics. Not included, however, were persons who could represent Gnostic Christianity, one of the most ancient and at the same time most timely and creative approaches to the interpretation of the Bible. Nor was there any appreciable mention of Gnostic views in the cover story of Time magazine (October 28,1996), which followed upon the television series, or in several books published in the ensuing months.

Had the recent revival of interest in Genesis occurred fifty or sixty years ago, this omission might have been understandable. Sources offering alternative interpretations of the Book of Genesis then were few and far between. All this changed, however, after 1945, when a veritable treasure trove of Gnostic scriptures was discovered in the Nag Hammadi valley in upper Egypt. This discovery would transform the character of biblical studies forever. The http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html - Nag Hammadi scriptures contain numerous creative variants of biblical teachings.

A Different View of Adam and Eve

William Blake, the Gnostic poet of the early nineteenth century, wrote of the differences between his view and the mainstream view of holy writ: 'Both read the Bible day and night; but you read black where I read white." The same words could have been uttered by Gnostic Christians and their orthodox opponents in the first three or four centuries A.D.

The orthodox view then regarded most of the Bible, particularly Genesis, as history with a moral. Adam and Eve were considered to be historical figures, the literal ancestors of our species. From the story of their transgression, orthodox teachers deduced specific moral consequences, chiefly the "fall" of the human race due to original sin. Another consequence was the lowly and morally ambivalent status of women, who were regarded as Eve's co-conspirators in the fateful deed of disobedience in paradise. Tertullian, a sworn enemy of the Gnostics, wrote to the female members of the Christian community thusly:

. . . you are the devil's gateway. . . you are she who persuaded him whom the devil did not dare attack. . . . Do you not know that you are each an Eve?  The sentence of God on your sex lives on in this age; the guilt, necessarily, lives on too.

The Gnostic Christians who authored the Nag Hammadi scriptures did not read Genesis as history with a moral, but as a myth with a meaning. To them, Adam and Eve were not actual historical figures, but representatives of two intrapsychic principles within every human being. Adam was the dramatic embodiment of psyche, or soul, while Eve stood for the pneuma, or spirit. Soul, to the Gnostics, meant the embodiment of the emotional and thinking functions of the personality, while spirit represented the human capacity for spiritual consciousness. The former was the lesser self (the ego of depth psychology), the latter the transcendental function, or the "higher self," as it is sometimes known. Obviously, Eve, then, is by nature superior to Adam, rather than his inferior as implied by orthodoxy.

Nowhere is Eve's superiority and numinous power more evident than in her role as Adam's awakener. Adam is in a deep sleep, from which Eve's liberating call arouses him. While the orthodox version has Eve physically emerge from Adam's body, the Gnostic rendering has the spiritual principle known as Eve emerging from the unconscious depths of the somnolent Adam. Before she thus emerges into liberating consciousness, Eve calls forth to the sleeping Adam in the following manner, as stated by the Gnostic http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html - Apocryphon of John :

I entered into the midst of the dungeon which is the prison of the body. And I spoke thus: "He who hears, let him arise from the deep sleep." And then he (Adam) wept and shed tears. After he wiped away his bitter tears he spoke, asking: "Who is it that calls my name, and whence has this hope come unto me, while I am in the chains of this prison?" And I spoke thus: "I am the Pronoia of the pure light; I am the thought of the undefiled spirit. . . .  Arise and remember . . . and follow your root, which is I . . . and beware of the deep sleep."

In another scripture from the same collection, entitled http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/origin.html - On the Origin of the World , we find further amplification of this theme. Here Eve whose mystical name is Zoe, meaning life, is shown as the daughter and messenger of the Divine Sophia, the feminine hypostasis of the supreme Godhead:

Sophia sent Zoe, her daughter, who is called "Eve," as an instructor in order that she might raise up Adam, in whom there is no spiritual soul so that those whom he could beget might also become vessels of light. When Eve saw her companion, who was so much like her, in his cast down condition she pitied him, and she exclaimed: "Adam, live! Rise up upon the earth!" Immediately her words produced a result for when Adam rose up, right away he opened his eyes. When he saw her, he said:  "You will be called 'mother of the living', because you are the one who gave me life."

In the same scripture, the creator and his companions whisper to each other while Adam sleeps: "Let us teach him in his sleep as though she (Eve) came to be from his rib so that the woman will serve and he will be lord over her." The demeaning tale of Adam's rib is thus revealed as a propagandistic device intended to advance an attitude of male superiority. It goes without saying that such an attitude would have been more difficult among the Gnostics, who held that man was indebted to woman for bringing him to life and to consciousness.

The Western theologian Paul Tillich interpreted this scripture as the Gnostics did, declaring that "the Fall" was a symbol for the human situation, not a story of an event that happened "once upon a time." Tillich said that the Fall represented "a fall from the state of dreaming innocence" in psychological terms, an awakening from potentiality to actuality. Tillich's view was that this "fall" was necessary to the development of humankind.

The Serpent of Wisdom

The sin of Eve, so the orthodox tell us, was that she listened to the serpent, who persuaded her that the fruit of the tree would make her and Adam wise, without any deleterious side-effects. It was Eve who then seduced the righteously reluctant Adam to join her in this act of disobedience, and thus together they brought about the fall of humanity.

A Gnostic treatise, http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/testruth.html - The Testimony of Truth , tells a different story. While repeating the words of the orthodox version of Genesis, the Gnostic source states that "the serpent was wiser than all the animals that were in Paradise." After extolling the wisdom of the serpent, the treatise casts serious aspersions on the creator: "What sort is he then, this God?" Then come some of the answers to the rhetorical question. The motive of the creator in punishing Adam was envy, for the creator envied Adam, who by eating the fruit would acquire knowledge (gnosis). Neither did the creator seem quite omniscient when he asked of Adam: "Where are you?" The creator has shown himself repeatedly to be "an envious slanderer," a jealous God, who inflicts cruel punishments on those who transgress his capricious orders and commandments. The treatise comments: "But these are the things he said (and did) to those who believe in him and serve him." The implication clearly presents itself that with a God like this, one needs no enemies.

Another treatise, http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html - The Hypostasis of the Archons , informs us that not only was Eve the emissary of the divine Sophia, but the serpent was similarly inspired by the same supernal wisdom. Sophia mystically entered the serpent, who thereby acquired the title of instructor. The instructor then taught Adam and Eve about their source, informing them that they were of high and holy origin and not mere slaves of the creator deity.

What, one may ask, motivated the Gnostic interpreters of Genesis to make these unusual statements? Were they purely motivated by bitter criticism directed against the God of Israel, as the Church Fathers would have us believe? Many contemporary scholars do not think so. These contemporary scholars suggest that the unfavorable image of the creator contrasted with the favorable one of Adam, Eve, and even of the serpent alludes to an important issue not frequently recognized.

The orthodox interpreters, both Jewish and Christian, tend to emphasize the distinction between the infinite creator and his finite creatures. Humans and animals are on earth, while God is in heaven, and never the two will meet. The orthodox have held, with Martin Buber, that the human's relationship to God is always "I and Thou." In the Gnostic position one can discern a keynote that is reminiscent of the attitude of certain other religions, notably Hinduism, which rather declares: "I am Thou."

The Gnostics share with the Hindus and with certain Christian mystics the notion that the divine essence is present deep within human nature in addition to being present outside of it. At one time humans were part of the divine, although later, in their manifest condition, they more and more tended to project divinity onto beings external to themselves. Alienation from God brings an increase in the worship of deities wholly external to the human. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gop.html - The Gospel of Philip , another scripture from Nag Hammadi, expresses it well:

In the beginning God created humans. Now, however, humans are creating God. Such is the way of this world-humans invent gods and worship their creations. It would be better for such gods to worship humans.

True God, False God

When discussing the story of Noah and the flood, author Karen Armstrong (A History of God, 1993), as a panelist on Moyers's program, asserted that God is "not some nice, cozy daddy in the sky," but rather a being who decidedly behaves frequently "in an evil way." With his actions in connection with the flood, Armstrong said, God originated the idea of justifiable genocide. Hitler and Stalin, one might deduce, acted on the instruction of such stories as that of the flood and of Sodom and Gomorrah when instituting the holocaust and the camps of the Gulag. Had the panelists called on Gnostic scriptures, they could have quoted many precedents for Armstrong's criticism of the vengeful God of the Old Testament.

The Gnostic http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/hypostas.html - Hypostasis of the Archons , for example, states that the cause of the flood was not the turning of humans to wickedness, causing God to repent of his creation, as the "official" version of Genesis declared. Quite the contrary, people were becoming wiser and better, so an envious and spiteful creator decided to wipe them out in the flood. Noah was told by the creator to build an ark and place it atop Mount Seir-a name that does not occur in Genesis, but in one of the psalms referring to the flood. Noah's wife, unnamed in Genesis but called Norea by the Gnostics, is a special person, possessing more wisdom than her husband. Norea is the daughter of Eve and a knower of hidden things. She tries to dissuade her husband from collaborating with the schemes of the creator, and ends up burning down the ark which Noah had built.

The creator and his dark angels then surround Norea and intend to punish Norea by raping her. Norea defends herself by refuting various false claims they make. Ultimately she cries out for help to the true God, who sends the golden Angel Eleleth (Sagacity), who not only saves her from the attack of the creator's dark servants, but also teaches her regarding her origins and promises her that her descendants will continue to possess the true gnosis.

There are other scriptures of the Nag Hammadi collection that repeat or refer to the story of Norea, including the http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html - Apocryphon of John and http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nore.html - The Thought of Norea. The former does not mention her by name, but states that Noah's descendants were wise ones who were hidden in a luminous cloud, adding significantly, "[This was not] as Moses said, 'They were hidden in the ark."' In the latter it is not only one angel but "three holy helpers" who intercede on her behalf.

It is quite apparent that the creator god who visits humanity with the disaster of the flood is not identical with the "true God" to whom Norea calls out for help. Viewing the character of the deity of Genesis with a sober, critical eye, the Gnostics concluded that this God was neither good nor wise. He was envious, genocidal, unjust, and, moreover, had created a world full of bizarre and unpleasant things and conditions. In their visionary explorations of secret mysteries, the Gnostics felt that they had discovered that this deity was not the only God, as had been claimed, and that certainly there was a God above him.

This true God above was the real father of humanity, and, moreover, there was a true mother as well, Sophia, the emanation of the true God. Somewhere in the course of the lengthy process of pre-creational manifestation, Sophia mistakenly gave life to a spiritual being, whose wisdom was greatly exceeded by his size and power. This being, whose true names are Yaldabaoth (child of the chaos), Samael (blind god), and also Saclas (foolish one), then proceeded to create a world, and eventually also a human being called Adam. Neither the world nor the man thus created was very serviceable as created, so Sophia and other high spiritual agencies contributed their light and power to them. The creator thus came to deserve the name "demiurge" (half maker), a Greek term employed in a slightly different sense by philosophers, including Plato.

To what extent various Gnostics took these mythologies literally is difficult to discern. What is certain is that behind the myths there are important metaphysical postulates which have not lost their relevance. The personal creator who appears in Genesis does not possess the characteristics of the ultimate, transcendental "ground of being" of which mystics of many religions speak. If the God of Genesis has any reality at all, it must be a severely limited reality, one characterized by at least some measure of foolishness and blindness. While the concept of two Gods is horrifying to the monotheistically conditioned mind, it is not illogical or improbable. Modem theologians, particularly Paul Tillich, have boldly referred to "the God above God." Tillich introduced the term "ground of being" as alternative language to express the divine. The ideas of the old Gnostics seem not so outdated after all.

The Mysteries of Seth

Almost anyone today could declare that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. The third son is more difficult to name; he is Seth. The third son was provided by God as a replacement for the slain Abel, according to Genesis. He was sired rather late in life by Adam, for Adam is said to have been 130 years old at the time. The historian Josephus wrote that Seth was a very great man and that his descendants were the discoverers of many mysterious arts, including astrology. The descendants of Seth then inscribed the records of their occult discoveries, according to Josephus, on two pillars, one brick, the other stone, so that they might be preserved in times of future disasters.

In the treatise http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/adam.html - The Apocalypse of Adam , the Gnostics presented us with a scripture that tells not only of Seth (and his father) but of the future of the esoteric tradition of gnosis in ages to come. It begins:

The disclosure given by Adam to his son Seth in his seven hundredth year. And he said: "Listen to my words, my son Seth. When God created me out of the earth, along with Eve your mother, I went along with her in a glory which she had seen in the aeon from which she came forth. She taught me the word of Gnosis of the eternal God. And we resembled the great eternal angels, for we were higher than the God who created us."

After thus informing us once again of the spiritually superior status of Eve, the scripture goes on to recount how the creator turned against Adam and Eve, robbing them of their glory and their knowledge. Humans now served the creator "in fear and in slavery," so Adam stated. While previously immortal, Adam now knew that his days were numbered. Therefore, he said he now wanted to pass on what he knew to Seth and his descendants.

In the prediction it becomes apparent that "Seth and his seed" would continue to experience gnosis, but that they would be subject to many grave tribulations. The first of these would be the flood, during which angels would rescue the Gnostic race of Seth and hide them in a secret place. Noah, on the other hand, would advise his sons to serve the creator God "in fear and slavery all the days of your life." After the return of the illumined people of Seth's kind, the creator would once again wrathfully turn against them and try to destroy them by raining fire, sulfur, and asphalt down on them-an allusion, perhaps, to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Once again many of the Gnostics would be saved by being taken by great angels to a place above the domain of the evil powers.

Much later there would be a new era with the coming of the man of light ("Phoster"), who would teach gnosis to all. http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/adam.html - The Apocalypse of Adam concludes with this passage:

This is the hidden knowledge of Adam which he gave to Seth, which is the holy baptism of those who know the imperishable Gnosis through those who are born of the Logos, through the imperishable Illuminator, who himself came from the holy seed (of Seth) Jesseus, Mazareus, Jessedekeus.

These names, which are obviously versions of the name of Jesus (they are found in other scriptures also), identify the culmination of the Gnostic tradition in the figure of Jesus. The "Race of Seth" is thus a biblical metaphor for those following this tradition. In the Gnostic book Pistis Sophia, Jesus identifies himself as coming from the "Great Race of Seth".

Old Answers to New Controversies

The current interest in Genesis raises many serious questions. Not a few of these have been illuminated by the neglected light shed by the scriptures quoted earlier. Not unlike the old Gnostics, today's questioning scholars and laypersons are provoked by Genesis to critiques and even to inventions of new variations on the ancient theme. Consider how deeply the social conditions of many countries have been influenced by the picture the orthodox version of Genesis presents concerning Eve and, by implication, women in general. Any of the several scriptures of the Nag Hammadi collection would shed an entirely different and more benign light on these issues.

Secondly, consider the political implications of the story of Genesis. Elaine Pagels, in her fascinating book Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988), pointed out that the long-held attitude of the Christian church of submitting to greatly flawed systems of secular government was usually justified by the "fallen condition" of humanity as first described in Genesis. Following largely the interpretations of Saint Augustine, most Christians felt that even bad governments were to be preferred to liberty because humans are so corrupted by Adam and Eve's original sin that they are in capable of governing themselves. The libertarian fervor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that gave rise to the American and French revolutions was clearly not motivated by the spirit of Genesis. The statement that "all men are created equal" does not occur in that scripture, but sprang from the inspiration of the American revolutionaries, who drew from Hermetic, Gnostic, and similar non-mainstream sources.

Thirdly, there remains the terrifying problem of the character of the God of Genesis. Agreeing with Karen Armstrong, we find Jack Miles, in his provocative book God: A Biography writing: "Much that the Bible says about him is rarely preached from the pulpit because, examined too closely, it becomes a scandal." Perhaps we may need to take a second look at the Gnostic proposition that the creator mentioned in Genesis is not the true and ultimate God. The unfavorable potential present in the Book of Genesis did not go unnoticed throughout history. Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, a religious teacher prominent in the years after A.D. 70, warned that the Genesis story of creation should not be taught before even as many as two people. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, wrote that many of the narratives in the Old Testament were "rude and repellent." He certainly included those in Genesis.

The Dinka tribesmen of the Sudan have a point. The creation myth of any culture has a profound effect on the attitudes, social mores, and political systems that prevail. So long as the Book of Genesis remains a basic text for Jews, Christians, and Muslims we can expect the societies within which these religions flourish to be influenced by this book. Still, there is some hope on the horizon. Although the Gnostic alternatives to the content of Genesis are still usually neglected, as indeed they were on television and in the press last year, some prominent figures of our culture are beginning to take notice. To mention but one such figure, Harold Bloom has become one of the most prominent voices calling attention to the creative character of the Gnostic alternative to mainstream religion. His books American Religion (1992) and Omens of Millennium (1996) have made a powerful case for the timeliness and perennial value of the positions taken by Christian Gnostics, Jewish Kabbalists, and Sufi mystics, all of whom are inspired by a common gnosis. It may be useful to conclude with an incisive and in our view definitive statement from the pen of this scholar:

If you can accept a God who coexists with death camps, schizophrenia, and AIDS, yet remains all-powerful and somehow benign, then you have faith, and you have accepted the covenant with Yahweh.... If you know yourself as having an affinity with the alien or stranger God, cut off from this world, then you are a Gnostic, and perhaps the best and strongest moments still come to what is best and oldest in you, to a breath or spark that long precedes this Creation.

The Corpus Hermeticum

Corpus Hermeticum - John Everard

Septem Sermones ad Mortuos.1916

THE SEVEN SERMONS TO THE DEAD WRITTEN BY
BASILIDES IN ALEXANDRIA, THE CITY WHERE THE EAST
TOUCHETH THE WEST.

Transcribed by Carl Gustav Jung.

Sermo I.

The Dead came back from Jerusalem, where they found not
what they sought. They prayed me let them in and besought
my word, and thus i began my teaching.
Harken: I begin with nothingness. Nothingness is the same as
fullness. In infinity full is no better than empty.
Nothingness is both empty and full. As well might ye say anything
else of nothingness,as for instance, white is it, or black, or again,
it is not, or it is. A thing that is infinite and eternal hath no
qualities, since it hath all qualities.
This nothingness or fullness we name the Pleroma.
Therein both thinking and being cease, since the eternal and infinite
possess no qualities. In it no being is, for he then would be distinct
from the pleroma, and would possess qualities which would distinguish
him as something distinct from the pleroma.
In the pleroma there is nothing and everything. It is quite fruitless
to think about the pleroma, for this would mean self-dissolution.
Creatura is not in the pleroma, but in itself. The pleroma is
both beginning and end of the created beings. It pervadeth them, as
the light od the sun everywhere pervadeth the air. Although the pleroma
prevadeth altogether, yet hath created being no share thereof, just
as wholly transparent body becometh neither light nor dark through
the light nor dark through the light which pervadeth it. We are,however
, the pleroma itself, for we are a part of the eternal and the infinite.
But we have no share thereof, as we are from the pleroma infinitely
removed; not spiritually or temporally, but essentially, since we are
distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which is
confined within time and space.

Yet because we are parts of the pleroma, the pleroma is also in us.
Even in the smallest point is the pleroma endless, eternal, and
entire, since small and great are qualities which are contained in it.
It is that nothingness which is everywhere whole and continuous.
Only figuratively, therefore, do I speak of created being as part of
the pleroma. Because, actually, the pleroma is nowhere divided,
since it is nothingness. We are also the whole pleroma, because,
figuratively, the pleroma is the smallest point (assumed only, not
existing) in us and the boundless firmanent about us. But wherefore,
then, do we speak of the pleroma at all, since it is thus everything
and nothing? I speak of it to make a beginning somewhere, and also
to free you from the delusion that somewhere, either without or within,
there standeth something fixed, or in some way established, from the
beginning. Every so-called fixed and certain thing is only relative.
That alone is fixed and certain which is subject to change.
What is changeable, however, is creature. Therefore is it the one thing
which is fixed and certain because it hath qualities: or as even a quality itself.

The question ariseth: How did creatura originate?
Created beings came to pass, not creatura: since created being is the very
quality of the pleroma, as much as non-creation which is the eternal death.
In all times and places is creation, in all times and places is death.
The pleroma hath all, distinctiveness and non-distinctiveness.
Distinctiveness is creatura.It is distinct. Distinctivness is its
essence. and therefore it distinguisheth. Wherefore also he distinguished
qualities of the pleroma which are not. He distinguisheth them out of
his own nature. Therefore he must speak of qualities of the pleroma
which are not.

What use, say ye, to speak of it?
Saidst thou not thyself, there is no profit in thinking upon the pleroma?
That said I unto you, to free you from the delusion that we are able
to think about the pleroma. When we distinguish qualities of
the pleroma, we are speaking from the ground of our own distinctiveness
and concerning our own distinctiveness. But we have said nothing
concerning the pleroma. Concerning our own distinctiveness, however,
it is needfull to speak, whereby we may distinguish ourselves enough.
Our very nature is distinctiveness. If we are not true to this nature
we do not distinguish ourselves enough. Therefore must we make
distinctions of qualities.

What is the harm, ye ask, in not distingusihing oneself?
If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our own nature, away from
creatura. We fall into indistinctiveness, which is the other quality of
the pleroma. We fall into the pleroma itself and cease to be creatures.
We are given over to dissolution in nothingness. This is the death
of the creature. Therefore we die in such measure as we do not
distinguish. Hence the natural striving of the creature goeth towards
distinctiveness, fighteth against primeval, perilous sameness.
This is called the PRINCIPIUM INDIVIDUATIONIS.
This principle is the essence of the creature. From this you can see why
indistictiveness and non-distinction are a great danger for the creature.
We must, therefore, distinguish the qualities of the pleroma.
The qualities are PAIRS OF OPPOSITES, such as -

The pairs of opposities are qualities of the pleroma which are not,
because each balanceth each. As we are the pleroma itself, we also
have all these qualities in us. Because the very ground of our nature
is distinctiveness, which meaneth -

When we strive after the good or the beautiful, we thereby forget our
own nature, which is disinctiveness, and we are delivered over to
the qualities of the pleroma, which are pairs of opposites.
We labor to attain the good and the beautiful, yet at the same time
we also lay hold of the evil and the ugly, since in the pleroma these
are one with the good and the beautiful. When, however, we remain
true to our own nature, which is distinctiveness, we distinguish
ourselves from the good and the beautiful,therefore, at the same time,
from the evil and ugly. And thus we fall not into the pleroma,
namely, into nothingness and dissolution.
Thou sayest, ye object, that difference and sameness are also qualities
of the pleroma. How would it be, then, if we strive after difference?
Are we, in so doing, not true to our own nature? And must we none the
less be given over to the sameness when we strive after difference?
Ye must not forget that the pleroma hath no qualities. We create them
through thinking. If, therefore, ye strive after difference or sameness,
or any qualities whatsoever, ye pursue thought which flow to you
our of the pleroma: thoughts, namely, concerning non-existing qualities
of the pleroma. Inasmuch as ye run after these thoughts, ye fall again
into the pleroma, and reach difference and sameness at the same time.
Not your thhinking, but your being, is distinctiveness.
Therefore not after difference, ye think it, must ye strive; but after
YOUR OWN BEING. At bottom, therefore, there is only one
striving, namely, the striving after your own being. If ye had this striving
ye would not need to know anything about the pleroma and its qualities,
and yet would ye come to your right goal by virtue of your own being.
Since, however, thought estrangeth from being, that knowledge must
I trach you wherewith ye may be able to hold your thought in leash.

Sermo II

In the night the dead stood along the wall and cried:
We would have knowledge of god.Where is god? Is god dead?
God is not dead. Now, as ever, he liveth. God is creatura, for he
is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma.
God is quality of the pleroma, and everything I said of creatura
also is true concerning him.
He is distinguished, however, from created beings through this,
that he is more indefinite and indeterminable than they. He is less
distinct than created beings, since the ground of his being is effective
fullness. Only in so far as he is definite and distinct is he creatura,
and in like measure is he the manifestation of the effective fullness
of the pleroma.

Everthing which we do not distinguish falleth into the pleroma and
is made void by its opposite. If, therefore, we do noy distinguish
god, effective fullness is for us extinguished.
Moreover god is the pleroma itself, as likewise each smallest point
in the created and uncreated is pleroma itself.
Effective void is the nature of the devil. God and decil are the
first manifestations of nothingness, which we call the pleroma.
It is indifferent wether the pleroma is or is not, since in everything
it is balanced and void. Not so creatura. In so far as god and devil
are creatura they do not extinguish each other, but stand one against
the other as effective opposites. We need no proof of their existence.
It is enough that we must always be speaking of them. Even if both
were not, creatura, of its own essential distinctiveness, would forever
distinguish them anew out of the pleroma.

Everything that discrimination taketh out of the pleroma is a pair
of opposites. To god, therefore, always belongeth the devil.
This inseparability is as close and , as your own life hath made you
see, as indissoluble as the pleroma itself. Thus it is that both stand
very close to the pleroma, in which all opposites are extinguished
and joined.

God and devil are distinguished by the qualities of fullness and
emptiness, generation and destruction. EFFECTIVENESS is
common to both. Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore,
standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it
uniteth fullness and emptiness.
This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by
its name ABRAXAS. It is more indefinite still than god and
devil. That god may be distinguished from it, we name god HELIOS
or sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the
ineffective; hence its effective natyre freely unfoldeth itself.
The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth
above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal
reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation.
It is the effective itself, nor any particular effect, but effect in general.

The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.

Sermo III.

Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried:
Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god.
Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest,
because man perceiveth it not. From the sun he draweth the
summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum:
but from Abraxas LIFE, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.

Smaller and weaker life seemeth to be than the summum bonum;
wherefore is it also hard to conceive that Abraxas transcendeth even
the sun in power, who is himself the radient source of all the force of life.
Abraxas is the sun, and at the same time the eternally sucking gorge
of the void, the belittling and dismembering devil.

The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for
your eyes the warring opposites of this power are extinguished.
What the god-sun speaketh is life.
What the devil speaketh is death.
But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is
life and death at the same time.
Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness,
in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.
It is splendid as the lion in the instant he striketh down his
victim. It is beautiful as a day in spring. It is the great Pan himself
and also the small one. It is Priapos.
It is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed polyp,
coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy.
It is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning.
It is the lord of the toads and frogs,, which live in the water and gets
up on the land, whose chorus ascendeth at noon and at midnight.
It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness.
It is holy begetting.
It is love and love`s murder.
It is the saint and his betrayer.
It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.
To look upon it, is blindness.
To know it, is sickness.
To worship it, is death.
To fear it, is wisdom.
To resist it not, is redemption.

God dwelleth behind the sun, the devil behind the night. What god
bringeth forth out of the light of the devil sucketh into the night.
But Abraxas is the world, its becoming and its passing- Upon every
gift that cometh from the god-sun the devil layeth his curse.

Everything that ye entreat from the god-sun begetteth a
deed from the devil.
Everything that ye create with the god-sun giveth effective
power to the devil.
That is terrible Abraxas.
It is the mightiest creature, and in it the creature is
afraid of itself.
It is the manifest opposition to the pleroma and its nothingness.
It is the son`s horror of the mother.
It is the mother`s love for the son.
It is the delight of the earth and the cruelty of the heavens.
Before its countenance man becometh like stone.
Before it there is no question and no reply.
It is the life of creatura.
It is the operation of distinctiveness.
It is the love of man.
It is the speech of man.
It is the appearance and the shadow of man.
It is illusory reality.

Now the dead howled and raged, for they were unperfected.

Sermo IV.

The dead filled the place murmuring and said;
Tell us of gods and devils, accursed one!
The god-suun is the highest good, the devil its opposite.
Thus have ye two gods. But there are many high and good things
and many great evils. Among these are two god-devils; the one is the
Burning One , the other the Growing One.
The burning one is EROS, who hath the form of flame.
Flame giveth light because it consumeth.
The growing one is the TREE OF LIFE.. It buddeth,
as in growing it heapeth up living stuff.
Eros flameth up and dieth. But the tree of life groweth with slow
and constant increase through unmeasured time.
Good and evil are united in the flame.
Good and evil are united in the increase of the tree. In their divinity
stand life and love opposed.
Innumerable as the host of the stars is the number of gods and devils.
Each star is a god, and each space that a star filleth is a devil.
But the empty-fullness of the whole is the pleroma.
The operation of the whole is Abraxas, to whom only the
ineffective standeth opposed.
Four is the number of the principal gods, as four is the
number of the world`s measurements.
One is the beginning, the god-sun.
Two is Eros; for he bindeth twain together and outspreadeth himself
in brightness.
Three is the Tree of Life, for it filleth space with bodily forms.
Four is the devil, for he openeth all that is closed. All that is
formed of bodily nature doth he dissolve; he is the destroyer in
whom everything is brought to nothing.

For me, to whom knowledge hath been given of the multiplicity and
diversity of the good, it is well. But woe unto you, who replace
these incompatible many by a single god. For in so doing ye beget
the torment which is bred from not understanding, and ye mutilate
the creature whose nature and aim is distinctiveness. How can ye
be true to your own nature when ye try to change the many into one?
What ye do unto the gods is done likewise unto you. Ye all become
equal and thus is your nature maimed.

Equalities shall prevail not for god, but only for the sake of man.
For the gods are many, whilst men are few. The gods are mighty and
can endure their manifoldness. For like the stars they abide in
solitude, parted one from the other by immense distances. Therefore
they dwell together and need communion, that they may bear their
separateness. For redemtion`s sake I teach you the rejected truth,
for the sake of which I was rejected.
The multiplicity of the gods correspondeth to the multiplicity of man. Numberless gods await the human state. Numberless gods have been men. Man shareth in nature of the gods. He cometh from the gods and goeth unto god. Thus, just as it serveth not to reflect upon the plerome, it availeth not to worship the multiplicity of the gods. Least of all availeth it to worship the first god, the effective abundance and the summum bonum.. By our prayer we can add to it nothing, and from it nothing take; because the effective void swalloweth all. The bright gods form the celestial world. It is manifold and infinitely spreading and increasing. The god-sun is the supreme lord of the world. The dark gods form the earth-world. They are simple and infinitely diminishing and declining. The devil is the earth-world`s lowest lord, the moon-spirit, satellite of the earth, smaller, colder, and more dead than the earth. There is no difference between the might of the celestial gods and those of the earth. The celestial gods magnify, the earth-gods diminish. Measurelesss is the movement of both.

Sermo V.

The dead mocked and cried: Teach us, fool, of the Church and the holy Communion. The world of the gods is made manifest in spirituality and in sexuality. The celestial ones appear in spirituality, the earthly in sexuality. Spirituality conceiveth and embraceth. It is womanlike and therefore we call it MATER COELESTIS, the celestial mother. Sexuality engendereth and createth. It is manlike, and therefore we call it PHALLOS, the earthly father. The sexuality of man is more of the earth, the sexuality of woman is more of the spirit. The spirituality of man is more of heaven, it goeth to the greater. The spirituality of woman is more of the earth, it goeth to the smaller. Lying and devilish is the spirituality of the man which goeth to the smaller. Lying and devilish is the spirituality of the woman which goeth to the greater. Each must go its own place. Man and woman become devils one to the other when they divide not their spiritual ways, for the nature of the creatura is distinctiveness. The sexuality of man hath an earthward course, the sexuality of woman a spiritual. Man and woman becomes devils one to the other if they distinguish not their sexuality. Man shall know of the smaller, woman the greater. Man shall distinguish himself both from spirituality and sexuality. He shall spirituality Mother, and set her between heaven and earth. He shall call sexuality Phallos, annd set him between himself and earth. For the Mother and the Phallos are super-human daemons which reveal the world of the gods. They are for us more effective than the gods, because they are closely akin to our own nature. Should ye not distinguish yourselves from sexuality and from spirituality, and not regard them as of a nature borh above you and beyond, then are ye delivered over to them as qualities of the pleroma. Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities, not things ye possess and contain. But they possess and contain you; for they are powerfull daemons, manifestations of the gods, and are, therefore, things which reach beyond you, existing in themselves. No man hath a spirituality unto himself, or a sexuality unto himself. But he standeth under the law of Spirituality and of sexuality. No man, therefore, escapeth these daemons. Ye shall look upn them as daemons, and as a common task and danger, a common burdon which life hath laid upon you. Thus is life for you also a common task and danger, as are the gods, and first of all terrible Abraxas. Man is weak, therefore is communion indispensable. If your communion be not under the sign of the Mother, then is it under the sign of the Phallos. No communion is suffering and sickness. Communion in everything is dismemberment and dissolution. Distinctiveness leadeth to singleness. Singleness is opposed to communion. But because of man`s weakneess over against the gods and daemons and their invincible law is communion needful, not for man`s sake, but because of the gods.The gods force you to communion. As much as they force you, so much is the communion needed, more is evil. In communion let every man submit to the others, that communion be maintained, for ye need it. In Singleness the one man shall be superior to the others, that every man may come to himself and avoid slavery. In communion there shall be continence. In Singleness there shall be prodigality. Communion is depth. Singleness is height. Right measure in communion purifieth and preserveth. Right measure in Singleness purifieth and increaseth. Communion giveth us warmth, Singleness giveth us light.

Sermo VI.

The daemons of sexuality approacheth our soul as a serpent. It is half human and appeareth as thought-desire. The daemon of spirituality descendeth into our soul as the white bird. It is half human and appeareth as desire-thought. The Serpent is an earthly soul, half daemonic, a spirit, and akin to the spirits of the dead. Thus too, like these, she swarmeth around in the things of earth, making us either fear them or pricking us with intemperate desires. The Serpent hath a nature like unto woman. She seeketh company of the dead who are held by the spell of the earth, they who found not the way beyond that leadeth to singleness. The Serpent is a whore. She wantoneth with the devil and with evil spirits; a mischievous tyrant and tormentor, ever seducing to evilest company. The White Bird is a half-celestial soul of man. He bideth with the Mother, from time to time descending.The bird hath a nature like unto man, and is effective thought. He is chaste and solitary, a messenger of the Mother. He flieth high above earth. He commandeth singleness. He bringeth knowledge from the distant ones who went before and are perfected. He beareth our word above to the Mother. She intercedeth, she warneth, but against the gods she hath no power. She is a vessel of the sun. The serpent goeth below and with her cunning she lameth the phallic daemon, or else goadeth him on. She yieldeth up the too crafty toughts of the earthy one, those thoughts which creep through every hole and cleave to all things with desirousness. The Serpent, doubtless, willeth it not, yet she must be of use to us. She fleeth our grasp , thus showing us the way, which with our human wits we could not find.

With disdainful glance the dead spake: Cease this talk of gods and daemons and souls. At this hath long been known to us.

Sermo VII.

Yet when night was come the dead again approached with lamentable mien and said: There is yet one matter we forgot to mention. Teach us about man. Man is a gateway, through which from the outer world of gods, daemons, and souls ye pass into the inner world; out of the greater into the smaller world. Small and transitory is man. Already is he behind you, and once again ye find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller of innermost infinity. At immeasurable distance standeth one single Star in the zenith. This is the one god of this one man. This is his world, his pleroma, his divinity. In this world is man Abraxas, the creator and destroyer of his one world. This Star is the god and the goal of man. This is his one guiding god. In him goeth man to his rest. Toward him goeth the long journey of the soul after death. In him shineth forth as light all that man bringeth back from the greater world. To this one god man shall pray. Prayer increaseth the light of the Star. It casteth a bridge over death. It prepareth life for the smaller world and assuageth the hopleless desires of the greater. When the greater world waxeth cold, burneth the Star. Between man and his one god there standeth nothing, so long as man can turn away his eyes from the flaming spectacle of Abraxas. Man here, god there. Weakness and nothingness here, there eternally creative power. Here nothing but darkness and chilling moisture. There Wholly Sun.

Whereupon the dead were silent and ascended like the smoke above the herdman`s fire, who through the night kept watch over his flock.

The Hymn 

(The Hymn of  Judas Thomas the Apostle
in the Country of the Indians)

I.

When, a quite little child, I was dwelling
In the House of my Father’s Kingdom,

And in the wealth and the glories
Of my Up-bringers I was delighting,

From the East, our Home, my Parents
Forth-sent me with journey-provision.

Indeed from the wealth of our Treasure,
They bound up for me a load.

Large was it, yet was it so light
That all alone I could bear it.

II.

Gold from the Land of Beth-Ellaya,
Silver from Gazak the Great,

Chalcedonies of India,
Iris-hued [Opals?] from Kãshan.

They girt me with Adamant [also]
That hath power to cut even iron.

My Glorious Robe they took off me
Which in their love they had wrought me,

And my Purple Mantle [also]
Which was woven to match with my stature.

III.

And with me They [then] made a compact;
In my heart wrote it, not to forget it:

"If thou goest down into Egypt,
And thence thou bring’st the one Pearl --

"[The Pearl] that lies in the Sea,
Hard by the loud-breathing Serpent --

"[Then] shalt Thou put on thy Robe
And thy Mantle that goeth upon it,

"And with thy Brother, Our Second,
Shalt thou be Heir in our Kingdom."

IV.

I left the East and went down
With two Couriers [with me];

For the way was hard and dangerous,
For I was young to tread it.

I traversed the borders of Maish~ n,
The mart of the Eastern merchants,

And I reached the Land of Babel,
And entered the walls of Sarbãg.

Down further I went into Egypt;
And from me parted my escorts.

V.

Straightway I went to the Serpent;
Near to his lodging I settled,

To take away my Pearl
While he should sleep and should slumber.

Lone was I there, yea, all lonely;
To my fellow-lodgers a stranger.

However I saw there a noble,
From out of the Dawn-land my kinsman,

A young man fair and well favoured,
Son of Grandees; he came and he joined me.

VI.

I made him my chosen companion,
A comrade, for sharing my wares with.

He warned me against the Egyptians,
’Gainst mixing with the unclean ones.

For I had clothed me as they were,
That they might not guess I had come

From afar to take off the Pearl,
And so rouse the Serpent against me.

VII.

But from some occasion or other
They learned I was not of their country.

With their wiles they made my acquaintance;
Yea, they gave me their victuals to eat.

I forgot that I was a King’s son,
And became a slave to their king.

I forgot all concerning the Pearl
For which my Parents had sent me;

And from the weight of their victuals
I sank down into a deep sleep.

VIII.

All this that now was befalling,
My Parents perceived and were anxious.

It was then proclaimed in our Kingdom,
That all should speed to our Gate --

Kings and Chieftains of Parthia,
And of the East all the Princes.

And this is the counsel they came to:
I should not be left down in Egypt.

And for me they wrote out a Letter;
And to it each Noble his Name set:

IX.

"From Us -- King of Kings, thy Father,
And thy Mother, Queen of the Dawn-land,

"And from Our Second, thy Brother --
To thee, Son, down in Egypt, Our Greeting!

"Up an arise from thy sleep,
Give ear to the words of Our Letter!

"Remember that thou art a King’s son;
See whom thou hast served in thy slavedom.

Bethink thyself of the Pearl
For which thou didst journey to Egypt.

X.

"Remember thy Glorious Robe,
Thy Splendid Mantle remember,

"To put on and wear as adornment,
When thy Name may be read in the Book of the Heroes,

"And with Our Successor, thy Brother,
Thou mayest be Heir in Our Kingdom."

My Letter was [surely] a Letter
The King had sealed up with His Right Hand,

’Gainst the Children of Babel, the wicked,
The tyrannical Daimons of Sarbãg.

XI.

It flew in the form of the Eagle,
Of all the winged tribes the king-bird;

It flew and alighted beside me,
And turned into speech altogether.

At its voice and the sound of its winging,
I waked and arose from my deep sleep.

Unto me I took it and kissed it;
I loosed its seal and I read it.

E’en as it stood in my heart writ,
The words of my Letter were written.

XII.

I remembered that I was a King’s son,
And my rank did long for its nature.

I bethought me again of the Pearl,
For which I was sent down to Egypt.

And I began [then] to charm him,
The terrible loud-breathing Serpent.

I lulled him to sleep and to slumber,
Chanting o’er him the Name of my Father,

The Name of our Second, [my Brother],
And [Name] of my Mother, the East-Queen.

XIII.

And [thereon] I snatched up the Pearl,
And turned to the House of my Father.

Their filthy and unclean garments
I stripped off and left in their country.

To the way that I came I betook me,
To the Light of our Home, to the Dawn-land.

On the road I found [there] before me,
My Letter that had aroused me --

As with its voice it had roused me,
So now with its light it did lead me --

XIV.

On fabric of silk, in letter of red [?],
With shining appearance before me [?],

Encouraging me with its guidance,
With its love it was drawing me onward.

I went forth; through Sarbãg I passed;
I left B~ bel-land on my left hand;

And I reached unto Maishan the Great,
The meeting-place of the merchants,

That lieth hard by the Sea-shore.

XV.

My Glorious Robe that I’d stripped off,
And my Mantle with which it was covered,

Down from the Heights of Hyrcania,
Thither my Parents did send me,

By the hands of their Treasure-dispensers
Who trustworthy were with it trusted.

Without my recalling its fashion, --
In the House of my Father my childhood had left it,--

At once, as soon as I saw it,
The Glory looked like my own self.

XVI.

I saw it in all of me,
And saw me all in [all of] it, --

That we were twain in distinction,
And yet again one in one likeness.

I saw, too, the Treasurers also,
Who unto me had down-brought it,

Were twain [and yet] of one likeness;
For one Sign of the King was upon them --

Who through them restored me the Glory,
The Pledge of my Kingship [?].

XVII.

The Glorious Robe all-bespangled
With sparkling splendour of colours:

With Gold and also with Beryls,
Chalcedonies, iris-hued [Opals?],

With Sards of varying colours.
To match its grandeur [?], moreover, it had been completed:

With adamantine jewels
All of its seams were off-fastened.

[Moreover] the King of Kings’ Image
Was depicted entirely all o’er it;

And as with Sapphires above
Was it wrought in a motley of colour.

XVIII.

I saw that moreover all o’er it
The motions of Gnosis abounding;

I saw it further was making
Ready as though for to speak.

I heard the sound of its Music
Which it whispered as it descended [?]:

"Behold him the active in deeds!
For whom I was reared with my Father;

"I too have felt in myself
How that with his works waxed my stature."

XIX.

And [now] with its Kingly motions
Was it pouring itself out towards me,

And made haste in the hands of its Givers,
That I might [take and] receive it.

And me, too, my love urged forward
To run for to meet it, to take it.

And I stretched myself forth to receive it;
With its beauty of colour I decked me,

And my Mantle of sparkling colours
I wrapped entirely all o’er me.

XX.

I clothed me therewith, and ascended
To the Gate of Greeting and Homage.

I bowed my head and did homage
To the Glory of Him who had sent it,

Whose commands I [now] had accomplished,
And who had, too, done what He’d promised.

[And there] at the Gate of His House-sons
I mingled myself with His Princes;

For He had received me with gladness,
And I was with Him in His Kingdom;

XXI.

To whom the whole of His Servants
With sweet-sounding voices sing praises.

* * * * *

He had promised that with him to the Court
Of the King of Kings I should speed,

And taking with me my Pearl
Should with him be seen by our King.

The Odes of Solomon

Ode 1

1. The Lord is on my head like a crown, and I shall never be without Him.
2. Plaited for me is the crown of truth, and it caused Your branches to blossom in me.
3. For it is not like a parched crown that blossoms not;
4. For You live upon my head, and have blossomed upon me.
5. Your fruits are full and complete; they are full of Your salvation....

Ode 2

[There is no extant copy of Ode 2]

Ode 3

1. ... I am putting on the love of the Lord.
2. And His members are with Him, and I am dependent on them; and He loves me.
3. For I should not have known how to love the Lord, if He had not continuously loved me.
4. Who is able to distinguish love, except him who is loved?
5. I love the Beloved and I myself love Him, and where His rest is, there also am I.
6. And I shall be no stranger, because there is no jealousy with the Lord Most High and Merciful.
7. I have been united to Him, because the lover has found the Beloved, because I love Him that is the Son, I shall become a son.
8. Indeed he who is joined to Him who is immortal, truly shall be immortal.
9. And he who delights in the Life will become living.
10. This is the Spirit of the Lord, which is not false, which teaches the sons of men to know His ways.
11. Be wise and understanding and awakened.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 4

1. No man can pervert Your holy place, O my God; nor can he change it, and put it in another place.
2. Because he has no power over it; for Your sanctuary You designed before You made special places.
3. The ancient one shall not be perverted by those which are inferior to it. You have given Your heart, O Lord, to Your believers.
4. Never will You be idle, nor will You be without fruits;
5. For one hour of Your faith is more excellent than all days and years.
6. For who shall put on Your grace and be rejected?
7. Because Your seal is known; and Your creatures are known to it.
8. And Your hosts possess it, and the elect archangels are clothed with it.
9. You have given to us Your fellowship, not that You were in need of us, but that we are always in need of You.
10. Shower upon us Your gentle rain, and open Your bountiful springs which abundantly supply us with milk and honey.
11. For there is no regret with You; that You should regret anything which You have promised;
12. Since the result was manifest to You.
13. For that which You gave, You gave freely, so that no longer will You draw back and take them again.
14. For all was manifest to You as God, and was set in order from the beginning before You.
15. And You, O Lord, have made all.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 5

1. I praise You, O Lord, because I love You.
2. O Most High, forsake me not, for You are my hope.
3. Freely did I receive Your grace, may I live by it.
4. My persecutors will come but let them not see me.
5. Let a cloud of darkness fall upon their eyes; and let an air of thick darkness obscure them.
6. And let them have no light to see, so that they cannot seize me.
7. Let their designs become hardened, so that whatever they have conspired shall return upon their own heads.
8. For they have devised a plan, but it was not for them.
9. They prepared themselves maliciously, but they were found to be impotent.
10. Indeed my confidence is upon the Lord, and I will not fear.
11. And because the Lord is my salvation, I will not fear.
12. And He is as a woven crown upon my head, and I shall not be shaken.
13. Even if everything should be shaken, I shall stand firm.
14. And though all things visible should perish, I shall not die;
15. Because the Lord is with me, and I with Him.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 6

1. As the wind glides through the harp and the strings speak,
2. So the Spirit of the Lord speaks through my members, and I speak through His love.
3. For He destroys whatever is alien, and everything is of the Lord.
4. For thus it was from the beginning, and will be until the end.
5. So that nothing shall be contrary, and nothing shall rise up against Him.
6. The Lord has multiplied his knowledge, and He was zealous that those things should be known which through His grace have been given to us.
7. And His praise He gave us on account of His name, our spirits praise His Holy Spirit.
8. For there went forth a stream, and it became a river great and broad; indeed it carried away everything, and it shattered and brought it to the Temple.
9. And the barriers which were built by men were not able to restrain it, nor even the arts of them who habitually restrain water.
10. For it spread over the surface of all the earth, and it filled everything.
11. Then all the thirsty upon the earth drank, and thirst was relieved and quenched;
12. For from the Most High the drink was given.
13. Blessed, therefore, are the ministers of that drink, who have been entrusted with His water.
14. They have refreshed the parched lips, and have aroused the paralyzed will.
15. Even living persons who were about to expire, they have held back from death.
16. And limbs which have collapsed, they have restored and set up.
17. They gave strength for their coming, and light for their eyes.
18. Because everyone recognized them as the Lord's, and lived by the living water of eternity.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 7

1. As is the course of anger over wickedness, so is the course of joy over the Beloved; and brings in of its fruits unhindered.
2. My joy is the Lord and my course is towards Him, this path of mine is beautiful.
3. For there is a Helper for me, the Lord. He has generously shown Himself to me in His simplicity, because His kindness has diminished His dreadfulness.
4. He became like me, that I might receive Him. In form He was considered like me, that I might put Him on.
5. And I trembled not when I saw Him, because He was gracious to me.
6. Like my nature He became, that I might understand Him. And like my form, that I might not turn away from Him.
7. The Father of knowledge is the Word of knowledge.
8. He who created wisdom is wiser than His works.
9. And He who created me when yet I was not knew what I would do when I came into being.
10. On account of this He was gracious to me in His abundant grace, and allowed me to ask from Him and to benefit from His sacrifice.
11. For He it is who is incorrupt, the perfection of the worlds and their Father.
12. He has allowed Him to appear to them that are His own; in order that they may recognize Him that made them, and not suppose that they came of themselves.
13. For towards knowledge He has set His way, he has widened it and lengthened it and brought it to complete perfection.
14. And has set over it the traces of His light, and it proceeded from the beginning until the end.
15. For by Him He was served, and He was pleased by the Son.
16. And because of his salvation He will possess everything. And the Most High will be known by His holy ones:
17. To announce to those who have songs of the coming of the Lord, that they may go forth to meet Him and may sing to Him, with joy and with the harp of many tones.
18. The Seers shall go before Him, and they shall be seen before Him.
19. And they shall praise the Lord in His love, because He is near and does see.
20. And hatred shall be removed from the earth, and with jealousy it shall be drowned.
21. For ignorance was destroyed upon it, because the knowledge of the Lord arrived upon it.
22. Let the singers sing the grace of the Lord Most High, and let them bring their songs.
23. And let their heart be like the day, and their gentle voices like the majestic beauty of the Lord.
24. And let there not be anyone who breathes that is without knowledge or voice.
25. For He gave a mouth to His creation: to open the voice of the mouth towards Him, and to praise Him.
26. Confess His power and declare His grace.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 8

1. Open, open your hearts to the exultation of the Lord, and let your love abound from the heart to the lips.
2. In order to bring forth fruits to the Lord, a holy life; and to talk with watchfulness in His light.
3. Rise up and stand erect, you who sometimes were brought low.
4. You who were in silence, speak, for your mouth has been opened.
5. You who were despised, from henceforth be lifted up, for your Righteousness has been lifted up;
6. For the right hand of the Lord is with you, and He will be your Helper.
7. And peace was prepared for you, before what may be your war.
8. Hear the word of truth, and receive the knowledge of the Most High.
9. Your flesh may not understand that which I am about to say to you; nor your garment that which I am about to show you.
10. Keep my mystery, you who are kept by it; keep my faith, you who are kept by it.
11. And understand my knowledge, you who know me in truth; love me with affection, you who love;
12. For I turn not my face from my own, because I know them.
13. And before they had existed, I recognized them; and imprinted a seal on their faces.
14. I fashioned their members, and my own breasts I prepared for them, that they might drink my holy milk and live by it.
15. I am pleased by them, and am not ashamed by them.
16. For my workmanship are they, and the strength of my thoughts.
17. Therefore who can stand against my work? Or who is not subject to them?
18. I willed and fashioned mind and heart, and they are my own. And upon my right hand I have set my elect ones.
19. And my righteousness goes before them, and they shall not be deprived of my name; for it is with them.
20. Pray and increase, and abide in the love of the Lord;
21. And you who were loved in the Beloved, and you who are kept in Him who lives, and you who are saved in Him who was saved.
22. And you shall be found incorrupt in all ages, on account of the name of your Father.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 9

1. Open your ears, and I shall speak to you.
2. Give me yourself, so that I may also give you myself.
3. The word of the Lord and His desires, the holy thought which He has thought concerning His Messiah.
4. For in the will of the Lord is your life, and His purpose is eternal life, and your perfection is incorruptible.
5. Be enriched in God the Father; and receive the purpose of the Most High. Be strong and redeemed by His grace.
6. For I announce peace to you, His holy ones, so that none of those who hear shall fall in the war.
7. And also that those who have known Him may not perish, and so that those who received Him may not be ashamed.
8. An everlasting crown is Truth; blessed are they who set it on their head.
9. It is a precious stone, for the wars were on account of the crown.
10. But Righteousness has taken it, and has given it to you.
11. Put on the crown in the true covenant of the Lord, and all those who have conquered will be inscribed in His book.
12. For their book is the reward of victory which is for you, and she sees you before her and wills that you shall be saved.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 10

1. The Lord has directed my mouth by His Word, and has opened my heart by His Light.
2. And He has caused to dwell in me His immortal life, and permitted me to proclaim the fruit of His peace.
3. To convert the lives of those who desire to come to Him, and to lead those who are captive into freedom.
4. I took courage and became strong and captured the world, and the captivity became mine for the glory of the Most High, and of God my Father.
5. And the Gentiles who had been dispersed were gathered together, but I was not defiled by my love for them, because they had praised me in high places.
6. And the traces of light were set upon their heart, and they walked according to my life and were saved, and they became my people for ever and ever.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 11

1. My heart was pruned and its flower appeared, then grace sprang up in it, and my heart produced fruits for the Lord.
2. For the Most High circumcised me by His Holy Spirit, then He uncovered my inward being towards Him, and filled me with His love.
3. And His circumcising became my salvation, and I ran in the Way, in His peace, in the way of truth.
4. From the beginning until the end I received His knowledge.
5. And I was established upon the rock of truth, where He had set me.
6. And speaking waters touched my lips from the fountain of the Lord generously.
7. And so I drank and became intoxicated, from the living water that does not die.
8. And my intoxication did not cause ignorance, but I abandoned vanity,
9. And turned toward the Most High, my God, and was enriched by His favors.
10. And I rejected the folly cast upon the earth, and stripped it off and cast it from me.
11. And the Lord renewed me with His garment, and possessed me by His light.
12. And from above He gave me immortal rest, and I became like the land that blossoms and rejoices in its fruits.
13. And the Lord is like the sun upon the face of the land.
14. My eyes were enlightened, and my face received the dew;
15. And my breath was refreshed by the pleasant fragrance of the Lord.
16. And He took me to His Paradise, wherein is the wealth of the Lord's pleasure.
    I beheld blooming and fruit-bearing trees,
    And self-grown was their crown.
    Their branches were sprouting and their fruits were shining.
    From an immortal land were their roots.
    And a river of gladness was irrigating them,
    And round about them in the land of eternal life.
17. Then I worshipped the Lord because of His magnificence.
18. And I said, Blessed, O Lord, are they who are planted in Your land, and who have a place in Your Paradise;
19. And who grow in the growth of Your trees, and have passed from darkness into light.
20. Behold, all Your laborers are fair, they who work good works, and turn from wickedness to your pleasantness.
21. For the pungent odor of the trees is changed in Your land,
22. And everything becomes a remnant of Yourself. Blessed are the workers of Your waters, and eternal memorials of Your faithful servants.
23. Indeed, there is much room in Your Paradise. And there is nothing in it which is barren, but everything is filled with fruit.
24. Glory be to You, O God, the delight of Paradise for ever.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 12

1. He has filled me with words of truth, that I may proclaim Him.
2. And like the flowing of waters, truth flows from my mouth, and my lips declare His fruits.
3. And He has caused His knowledge to abound in me, because the mouth of the Lord is the true Word, and the entrance of His light.
4. And the Most High has given Him to His generations, which are the interpreters of His beauty,
   And the narrators of His glory,
   And the confessors of His purpose,
   And the preachers of His mind,
   And the teachers of His works.
5. For the subtlety of the Word is inexpressible, and like His utterance so also is His swiftness and His acuteness, for limitless is His progression.
6. He never falls but remains standing, and one cannot comprehend His descent or His way.
7. For as His work is, so is His expectation, for He is the light and dawning of thought.
8. And by Him the generations spoke to one another, and those that were silent acquired speech.
9. And from Him came love and equality, and they spoke one to another that which was theirs.
10. And they were stimulated by the Word, and knew Him who made them, because they were in harmony.
11. For the mouth of the Most High spoke to them, and His exposition prospered through Him.
12. For the dwelling place of the Word is man, and His truth is love.
13. Blessed are they who by means of Him have perceived everything, and have known the Lord in His truth.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 13

1. Behold, the Lord is our mirror. Open your eyes and see them in Him.
2. And learn the manner of your face, then declare praises to His Spirit.
3. And wipe the paint from your face, and love His holiness and put it on.
4. Then you will be unblemished at all times with Him.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 14

1. As the eyes of a son upon his father, so are my eyes, O Lord, at all times towards You.
2. Because my breasts and my pleasure are with You.
3. Turn not aside Your mercies from me, O Lord; and take not Your kindness from me.
4. Stretch out to me, my Lord, at all times, Your right hand, and be to me a guide till the end according to Your will.
5. Let me be pleasing before You, because of Your glory, and because of Your name let me be saved from the Evil One.
6. And let Your gentleness, O Lord, abide with me, and the fruits of Your love.
7. Teach me the odes of Your truth, that I may produce fruits in You.
8. And open to me the harp of Your Holy Spirit, so that with every note I may praise You, O Lord.
9. And according to the multitude of Your mercies, so grant unto me, and hasten to grant our petitions.
10. For You are sufficient for all our needs.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 15

1. As the sun is the joy of them who seek its daybreak, so is my joy the Lord;
2. Because He is my Sun, and His rays have lifted me up; and His light has dismissed all darkness from my face.
3. Eyes I have obtained in Him, and have seen His holy day.
4. Ears I have acquired, and have heard His truth.
5. The thought of knowledge I have acquired, and have enjoyed delight fully through Him.
6. I repudiated the way of error, and went towards Him and received salvation from Him abundantly.
7. And according to His generosity He gave to me, and according to His excellent beauty He made me.
8. I put on immortality through His name, and took off corruption by His grace.
9. Death has been destroyed before my face, and Sheol has been vanquished by my word.
10. And eternal life has arisen in the Lord's land, and it has been declared to His faithful ones, and has been given without limit to all that trust in Him.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 16

1. As the occupation of the ploughman is the ploughshare, and the occupation of the helmsman is the steering of the ship, so also my occupation is the psalm of the Lord by His hymns.
2. My art and my service are in His hymns, because His love has nourished my heart, and His fruits He poured unto my lips.
3. For my love is the Lord; hence I will sing unto Him.
4. For I am strengthened by His praises, and I have faith in Him.
5. I will open my mouth, and His Spirit will speak through me the glory of the Lord and His beauty,
6. The work of His hands, and the labor of His fingers;
7. For the multitude of His mercies, and the strength of His Word.
8. For the Word of the Lord investigates that which is invisible, and reveals His thought.
9. For the eye sees His works, and the ear hears His thought.
10. It is He who made the earth broad, and placed the waters in the sea.
11. He expanded the heaven, and fixed the stars.
12. And He fixed the creation and set it up, then He rested from His works.
13. And created things run according to their courses, and work their works, for they can never cease nor fail.
14. And the hosts are subject to His Word.
15. The reservoir of light is the sun, and the reservoir of darkness is the night.
16. For He made the sun for the day so that it will be light; but night brings darkness over the face of the earth.
17. And by their portion one from another they complete the beauty of God.
18. And there is nothing outside of the Lord, because He was before anything came to be.
19. And the worlds are by His Word, and by the thought of His heart.
20. Praise and honor to His name.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 17

1. Then I was crowned by my God, and my crown was living.
2. And I was justified by my Lord, for my salvation is incorruptible.
3. I have been freed from vanities, and am not condemned.
4. My chains were cut off by His hands, I received the face and likeness of a new person, and I walked in Him and was saved.
5. And the thought of truth led me, and I went after it and wandered not.
6. And all who saw me were amazed, and I seemed to them like a stranger.
7. And He who knew and exalted me, is the Most High in all His perfection.
8. And He glorified me by His kindness, and raised my understanding to the height of truth.
9. And from there He gave me the way of His steps, and I opened the doors which were closed.
10. And I shattered the bars of iron, for my own shackles had grown hot and melted before me.
11. And nothing appeared closed to me, because I was the opening of everything.
12. And I went towards all my bound ones in order to loose them; that I might not leave anyone bound or binding.
13. And I gave my knowledge generously, and my resurrection through my love.
14. And I sowed my fruits in hearts, and transformed them through myself.
15. Then they received my blessing and lived, and they were gathered to me and were saved;
16. Because they became my members, and I was their Head.
17. Glory to You, our Head, O Lord Messiah.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 18

1. My heart was lifted up and enriched in the love of the Most High, so that I might praise Him with my name.
2. My members were strengthened, that they may not fall from His power.
3. Infirmities fled from my body, and it stood firm for the Lord by His will; because His kingdom is firm.
4. O Lord, for the sake of those who are in need, do not dismiss Your Word from me.
5. Nor, for the sake of their works, withhold Your perfection from me.
6. Let not light be conquered by darkness, nor let truth flee from falsehood.
7. Let Your right hand set our salvation to victory, and let it receive from every region, and preserve it on the side of everyone who is besieged by misfortunes.
8. You are my God, falsehood and death are not in Your mouth; only perfection is Your will.
9. And vanity You know not, because neither does it know You.
10. And You know not error; because neither does it know You.
11. And ignorance appeared like dust, and like the foam of the sea.
12. And vain people thought that it was great, and they became like its type and were impoverished.
13. But those who knew understood and contemplated, and were not polluted by their thoughts;
14. Because they were in the mind of the Most High, and mocked those who were walking in error.
15. Then they spoke the truth, from the breath which the Most High breathed into them.
16. Praise and great honor to His name.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 19

1. A cup of milk was offered to me, and I drank it in the sweetness of the Lord's kindness.
2. The Son is the cup, and the Father is He who was milked; and the Holy Spirit is She who milked Him;
3. Because His breasts were full, and it was undesirable that His milk should be ineffectually released.
4. The Holy Spirit opened Her bosom, and mixed the milk of the two breasts of the Father.
5. Then She gave the mixture to the generation without their knowing, and those who have received it are in the perfection of the right hand.
6. The womb of the Virgin took it, and she received conception and gave birth.
7. So the Virgin became a mother with great mercies.
8. And she labored and bore the Son but without pain, because it did not occur without purpose.
9. And she did not require a midwife, because He caused her to give life.
10. She brought forth like a strong man with desire, and she bore according to the manifestation, and she acquired according to the Great Power.
11. And she loved with redemption, and guarded with kindness, and declared with grandeur.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 20

1. I am a priest of the Lord, and Him I serve as a priest;
2. And to Him I offer the offering of His thought.
3. For His thought is not like the world, nor like the flesh, nor like them who worship according to the flesh.
4. The offering of the Lord is righteousness, and purity of heart and lips.
5. Offer your inward being faultlessly; and let not your compassion oppress compassion; and let not yourself oppress a self.
6. You should not purchase a stranger because he is like yourself, nor seek to deceive your neighbor, nor deprive him of the covering for his nakedness.
7. But put on the grace of the Lord generously, and come to His Paradise, and make for yourself a garland from His tree.
8. Then put it on your head and be joyful, and recline upon His rest.
9. For His glory will go before you; and you shall receive of His kindness and of His grace; and you shall be anointed in truth with the praise of His holiness.
10. Praise and honor to His name.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 21

1. I lifted up my arms on high on account of the compassion of the Lord.
2. Because He cast off my bonds from me, and my Helper lifted me up according to His compassion and His salvation.
3. And I put off darkness, and put on light.
4. And even I myself acquired members. In them there was no sickness or affliction or suffering.
5. And abundantly helpful to me was the thought of the Lord, and His everlasting fellowship.
6. And I was lifted up in the light, and I passed before Him.
7. And I was constantly near Him, while praising and confessing Him.
8. He caused my heart to overflow, and it was found in my mouth; and it sprang forth unto my lips.
9. Then upon my face increased the exultation of the Lord and His praise.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 22

1. He who caused me to descend from on high, and to ascend from the regions below;
2. And He who gathers what is in the Middle, and throws them to me;
3. He who scattered my enemies, and my adversaries;
4. He who gave me authority over bonds, so that I might unbind them;
5. He who overthrew by my hands the dragon with seven heads, and set me at his roots that I might destroy his seed;
6. You were there and helped me, and in every place Your name surrounded me.
7. Your right hand destroyed his evil venom, and Your hand leveled the Way for those who believe in You.
8. And It chose them from the graves, and separated them from the dead ones.
9. It took dead bones and covered them with flesh.
10. But they were motionless, so It gave them energy for life.
11. Incorruptible was Your way and Your face; You have brought Your world to corruption, that everything might be resolved and renewed.
12. And the foundation of everything is Your rock. And upon it You have built Your kingdom, and it became the dwelling-place of the holy ones.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 23

1. Joy is for the holy ones. And who shall put it on but they alone?
2. Grace is for the elect ones. And who shall receive it but they who trusted in it from the beginning?
3. Love is for the elect ones. And who shall put it on but they who possessed it from the beginning?
4. Walk in the knowledge of the Lord, and you will know the grace of the Lord generously; both for His exultation and for the perfection of His knowledge.
5. And His thought was like a letter, and His will descended from on high.
6. And it was sent like an arrow which from a bow has been forcibly shot.
7. And many hands rushed to the letter, in order to catch it, then take and read it.
8. But it escaped from their fingers; and they were afraid of it and of the seal which was upon it.
9. Because they were not allowed to loosen its seal; for the power which was over the seal was greater than they.
10. But those who saw the letter went after it; that they might learn where it would land, and who should read it, and who should hear it.
11. But a wheel received it, and it came over it.
12. And a sign was with it, of the kingdom and of providence.
13. And everything which was disturbing the wheel, it mowed and cut down.
14. And it restrained a multitude of adversaries; and bridged rivers.
15. And it crossed over and uprooted many forests, and made an open way.
16. The head went down to the feet, because unto the feet ran the wheel, and whatever had come upon it.
17. The letter was one of command, and hence all regions were gathered together.
18. And there was seen at its head, the head which was revealed, even the Son of Truth from the Most High Father.
19. And He inherited and possessed everything, and then the scheming of the many ceased.
20. Then all the seducers became headstrong and fled, and the persecutors became extinct and were blotted out.
21. And the letter became a large volume, which was entirely written by the finger of God.
22. And the name of the Father was upon it; and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, to rule for ever and ever.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 24

1. The dove fluttered over the head of our Lord Messiah, because He was her head.
2. And she sang over Him, and her voice was heard.
3. Then the inhabitants were afraid, and the foreigners were disturbed.
4. The bird began to fly, and every creeping thing died in its hole.
5. And the chasms were opened and closed; and they were seeking the Lord as those who are about to give birth.
6. But He was not given to them for nourishment, because He did not belong to them.
7. But the chasms were submerged in the seal of the Lord, and they perished in the thought with which they had remained from the beginning.
8. For they were in labor from the beginning, and the end of their travail was life.
9. And all of them who were lacking perished, because they were not able to express the word so that they might remain.
10. And the Lord destroyed the devices, of all those who had not the truth with them.
11. For they were lacking in wisdom, they who exalted themselves in their mind.
12. So they were rejected, because the truth was not with them.
13. For the Lord revealed His way, and spread widely His grace.
14. And those who understood it knew His holiness.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 25

1. I was rescued from my chains, and I fled unto You, O my God.
2. Because You are the right hand of salvation, and my Helper.
3. You have restrained those who rise up against me, and no more were they seen.
4. Because Your face was with me, which saved me by Your grace.
5. But I was despised and rejected in the eyes of many, and I was in their eyes like lead.
6. And I acquired strength from You, and help.
7. A lamp You set for me both on my right and on my left, so that there might not be in me anything that is not light.
8. And I was covered with the covering of Your Spirit, and I removed from me my garments of skin.
9. Because Your right hand exalted me, and caused sickness to pass from me.
10. And I became mighty in Your truth, and holy in Your righteousness.
11. And all my adversaries were afraid of me, and I became the Lord's by the name of the Lord.
12. And I was justified by His kindness, and His rest is for ever and ever.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 26

1. I poured out praise to the Lord, because I am His own.
2. And I will recite His holy ode, because my heart is with Him.
3. For His harp is in my hand, and the odes of His rest shall not be silent.
4. I will call unto Him with all my heart, I will praise and exalt Him with all my members.
5. For from the East and unto the West is His praise;
6. Also from the South and unto the North is His thanksgiving.
7. Even from the crest of the summits and unto their extremity is His perfection.
8. Who can write the odes of the Lord, or who can read them?
9. Or who can train himself for life, so that he himself may be saved?
10. Or who can press upon the Most High, so that He would recite from His mouth?
11. Who can interpret the wonders of the Lord? Though he who interprets will be destroyed, yet that which was interpreted will remain.
12. For it suffices to perceive and be satisfied, for the odists stand in serenity;
13. Like a river which has an increasingly gushing spring, and flows to the relief of them that seek it.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 27

1. I extended my hands and hallowed my Lord,
2. For the expansion of my hands is His sign.
3. And my extension is the upright cross.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 28

1. As the wings of doves over their nestlings, and the mouths of their nestlings towards their mouths, so also are the wings of the Spirit over my heart.
2. My heart continually refreshes itself and leaps for joy, like the babe who leaps for joy in his mother's womb.
3. I trusted, consequently I was at rest; because trustful is He in whom I trusted.
4. He has greatly blessed me, and my head is with Him.
5. And the dagger shall not divide me from Him, nor the sword;
6. Because I am ready before destruction comes, and have been set on His immortal side.
7. And immortal life embraced me, and kissed me.
8. And from that life is the Spirit which is within me. And it cannot die because it is life.
9. Those who saw me were amazed, because I was persecuted.
10. And they thought that I had been swallowed up, because I seemed to them as one of the lost.
11. But my injustice became my salvation.
12. And I became their abomination, because there was no jealousy in me.
13. Because I continually did good to every man I was hated.
14. And they surrounded me like mad dogs, those who in stupidity attack their masters.
15. Because their thought is depraved, and their mind is perverted.
16. But I was carrying water in my right hand, and their bitterness I endured by my sweetness.
17. And I did not perish, because I was not their brother, nor was my birth like theirs.
18. And they sought my death but did not find it possible, because I was older than their memory; and in vain did they cast lots against me.
19. And those who were after me sought in vain to destroy the memorial of Him who was before them.
20. Because the thought of the Most High cannot be prepossessed; and His heart is superior to all wisdom.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 29

1. The Lord is my hope, I shall not be ashamed of Him.
2. For according to His praise He made me, and according to His grace even so He gave to me.
3. And according to His mercies He exalted me, and according to His great honor He lifted me up.
4. And he caused me to ascend from the depths of Sheol, and from the mouth of death He drew me.
5. And I humbled my enemies, and He justified me by His grace.
6. For I believed in the Lord's Messiah, and considered that He is the Lord.
7. And He revealed to me His sign, and He led me by His light.
8. And He gave me the scepter of His power, that I might subdue the devices of the people, and humble the power of the mighty.
9. To make war by His Word, and to take victory by His power.
10. And the Lord overthrew my enemy by His Word, and he became like the dust which a breeze carries off.
11. And I gave praise to the Most High, because He has magnified His servant and the son of His maidservant.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 30

1. Fill for yourselves water from the living fountain of the Lord, because it has been opened for you.
2. And come all you thirsty and take a drink, and rest beside the fountain of the Lord.
3. Because it is pleasing and sparkling, and perpetually refreshes the self.
4. For much sweeter is its water than honey, and the honeycomb of bees is not to be compared with it;
5. Because it flowed from the lips of the Lord, and it named from the heart of the Lord.
6. And it came boundless and invisible, and until it was set in the middle they knew it not.
7. Blessed are they who have drunk from it, and have refreshed themselves by it.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 31

1. Chasms vanished before the Lord, and darkness dissipated before His appearance.
2. Error erred and perished on account of Him; and contempt received no path, for it was submerged by the truth of the Lord.
3. He opened His mouth and spoke grace and joy; and recited a new chant to His name.
4. Then He lifted his voice towards the Most High, and offered to Him those that had become sons through Him.
5. And His face was justified, because thus His Holy Father had given to Him.
6. Come forth, you who have been afflicted, and receive joy.
7. And possess yourselves through grace, and take unto you immortal life.
8. And they condemned me when I stood up, me who had not been condemned.
9. Then they divided my spoil, though nothing was owed them.
10. But I endured and held my peace and was silent, that I might not be disturbed by them.
11. But I stood undisturbed like a solid rock, which is continuously pounded by columns of waves and endures.
12. And I bore their bitterness because of humility; that I might redeem my nation and instruct it.
13. And that I might not nullify the promises to the patriarchs, to whom I was promised for the salvation of their offspring.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 32

1. To the blessed ones the joy is from their heart, and light from Him who dwells in them;
2. And the Word of truth who is self-originate,
3. Because He has been strengthened by the Holy Power of the Most High; and He is unshaken for ever and ever.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 33

1. But again Grace was swift and dismissed the Corruptor, and descended upon him to renounce him.
2. And he caused utter destruction before him, and corrupted all his work.
3. And he stood on the peak of a summit and cried aloud from one end of the earth to the other.
4. Then he drew to him all those who obeyed him, for he did not appear as the Evil One.
5. However, the perfect Virgin stood, who was preaching and summoning and saying:
6. O you sons of men, return, and you their daughters, come.
7. And leave the ways of that Corruptor, and approach me.
8. And I will enter into you, and bring you forth from destruction, and make you wise in the ways of truth.
9. Be not corrupted nor perish.
10. Obey me and be saved, for I am proclaiming unto you the grace of God.
11. And through me you will be saved and become blessed. I am your judge;
12. And they who have put me on shall not be falsely accused, but they shall possess incorruption in the new world.
13. My elect ones have walked with me, and my ways I will make known to them who seek me; and I will promise them my name.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 34

1. There is no hard way where there is a simple heart, nor barrier for upright thoughts,
2. Nor whirlwind in the depth of the enlightened thought.
3. Where one is surrounded on every side by pleasing country, there is nothing divided in him.
4. The likeness of that which is below is that which is above.
5. For everything is from above, and from below there is nothing, but it is believed to be by those in whom there is no understanding.
6. Grace has been revealed for your salvation. Believe and live and be saved.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 35

1. The gentle showers of the Lord overshadowed me with serenity, and they caused a cloud of peace to rise over my head;
2. That it might guard me at all times. And it became salvation to me.
3. Everyone was disturbed and afraid, and there came from them smoke and judgment.
4. But I was tranquil in the Lord's legion; more than shade was He to me, and more than foundation.
5. And I was carried like a child by its mother; and He gave me milk, the dew of the Lord.
6. And I was enriched by His favor, and rested in His perfection.
7. And I spread out my hands in the ascent of myself, and I directed myself towards the Most High, and I was redeemed towards Him.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 36

1. I rested on the Spirit of the Lord, and She lifted me up to heaven;
2. And caused me to stand on my feet in the Lord's high place, before His perfection and His glory, where I continued glorifying Him by the composition of His Odes.
3. The Spirit brought me forth before the Lord's face, and because I was the Son of Man, I was named the Light, the Son of God;
4. Because I was the most glorified among the glorious ones, and the greatest among the great ones.
5. For according to the greatness of the Most High, so She made me; and according to His newness He renewed me.
6. And He anointed me with His perfection; and I became one of those who are near Him.
7. And my mouth was opened like a cloud of dew, and my heart gushed forth like a gusher of righteousness.
8. And my approach was in peace, and I was established in the Spirit of Providence.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 37

1. I stretched out my hands towards the Lord, and towards the Most High I raised my voice.
2. And I spoke with the lips of my heart, and He heard me when my voice reached Him.
3. His Word came towards me, in order to give me the fruits of my labors;
4. And gave me rest by the grace of the Lord.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 38

1. I went up into the light of Truth as into a chariot, and the Truth led me and caused me to come.
2. And caused me to pass over chasms and gulfs, and saved me from cliffs and valleys.
3. And became for me a haven of salvation, and set me on the place of immortal life.
4. And He went with me and caused me to rest and did not allow me to err; because He was and is the Truth.
5. And there was no danger for me because I constantly walked with Him; and I did not err in anything because I obeyed Him.
6. For Error fled from Him, and never met Him.
7. But Truth was proceeding on the upright way, and whatever I did not understand He exhibited to me:
8. All the poisons of error, and pains of death which are considered sweetness.
9. And the corrupting of the Corruptor, I saw when the bride who was corrupting was adorned, and the bridegroom who corrupts and is corrupted.
10. And I asked the Truth, Who are these? And He said to me: This is the Deceiver and the Error.
11. And they imitate the Beloved and His Bride, and they cause the world to err and corrupt it.
12. And they invite many to the wedding feast, and allow them to drink the wine of their intoxication;
13. So they cause them to vomit up their wisdom and their knowledge, and prepare for them mindlessness.
14. Then they abandon them; and so they stumble about like mad and corrupted men.
15. Since there is no understanding in them, neither do they seek it.
16. But I have been made wise so as not to fall into the hands of the Deceivers, and I myself rejoiced because the Truth had gone with me.
17. For I was established and lived and was redeemed, and my foundations were laid on account of the Lord's hand; because He has planted me.
18. For He set the root, and watered it and endowed it and blessed it, and its fruits will be forever.
19. It penetrated deeply and sprang up and spread out, and it was full and was enlarged.
20. And the Lord alone was glorified, in His planting and in His cultivation;
21. In His care and in the blessing of His lips, in the beautiful planting of His right hand;
22. And in the attainment of His planting, and in the understanding of His mind.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 39

1. Raging rivers are the power of the Lord; they send headlong those who despise Him.
2. And entangle their paths, and destroy their crossings.
3. And snatch their bodies, and corrupt their natures.
4. For they are more swift than lightnings, even more rapid.
5. But those who cross them in faith shall not be disturbed.
6. And those who walk on them faultlessly shall not be shaken.
7. Because the sign on them is the Lord, and the sign is the Way for those who cross in the name of the Lord.
8. Therefore, put on the name of the Most High and know Him, and you shall cross without danger; because rivers shall be obedient to you.
9. The Lord has bridged them by His Word, and He walked and crossed them on foot.
10. And His footsteps stand firm upon the waters, and were not destroyed; but they are like a beam of wood that is constructed on truth.
11. On this side and on that the waves were lifted up, but the footsteps of our Lord Messiah stand firm.
12. And they are neither blotted out, nor destroyed.
13. And the Way has been appointed for those who cross over after Him, and for those who adhere to the path of His faith; and who adore His name.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 40

1. As honey drips from the honeycomb of bees, and milk flows from the woman who loves her children, so also is my hope upon You, O my God.
2. As a fountain gushes forth its water, so my heart gushes forth the praise of the Lord, and my lips bring forth praise to Him.
3. And my tongue becomes sweet by His anthems, and my members are anointed by His odes.
4. My face rejoices in His exultation, and my spirit exults in His love, and my nature shines in Him.
5. And he who is afraid shall trust in Him, and redemption shall be assured in Him.
6. And His possessions are immortal life, and those who receive it are incorruptible.
   Hallelujah.

Ode 41

1. Let all the Lord's babes praise Him, and let us receive the truth of His faith.
2. And His children shall be acknowledged by Him, therefore let us sing by His love.
3. We live in the Lord by His grace, and life we receive by His Messiah.
4. For a great day has shined upon us, and wonderful is He who has given to us of His glory.
5. Let us, therefore, all of us agree in the name of the Lord, and let us honor Him in His goodness.
6. And let our faces shine in His light, and let our hearts meditate in His love, by night and by day.
7. Let us exult with the exultation of the Lord.
8. All those who see me will be amazed, because I am from another race.
9. For the Father of Truth remembered me; he who possessed me from the beginning.
10. For His riches begat me, and the thought of His heart.
11. And His Word is with us in all our way, the Savior who gives life and does not reject ourselves.
12. The Man who humbled Himself, but was exalted because of His own righteousness.
13. The Son of the Most High appeared in the perfection of His Father.
14. And light dawned from the Word that was before time in Him.
15. The Messiah in truth is one. And He was known before the foundations of the world, that He might give life to persons for ever by the truth of His name.
16. A new chant is for the Lord from them that love Him.
    Hallelujah.

Ode 42

1. I extended my hands and approached my Lord, for the expansion of my hands is His sign.
2. And my extension is the upright cross, that was lifted up on the way of the Righteous One.
3. And I became useless to those who knew me not, because I shall hide myself from those who possessed me not.
4. And I will be with those who love me.
5. All my persecutors have died, and they sought me, they who declared against me, because I am living.
6. Then I arose and am with them, and will speak by their mouths.
7. For they have rejected those who persecute them; and I threw over them the yoke of my love.
8. Like the arm of the bridegroom over the bride, so is my yoke over those who know me.
9. And as the bridal chamber is spread out by the bridal pair's home, so is my love by those who believe in me.
10. I was not rejected although I was considered to be so, and I did not perish although they thought it of me.
11. Sheol saw me and was shattered, and Death ejected me and many with me.
12. I have been vinegar and bitterness to it, and I went down with it as far as its depth.
13. Then the feet and the head it released, because it was not able to endure my face.
14. And I made a congregation of living among his dead; and I spoke with them by living lips; in order that my word may not be unprofitable.
15. And those who had died ran towards me; and they cried out and said, Son of God, have pity on us.
16. And deal with us according to Your kindness, and bring us out from the bonds of darkness.
17. And open for us the door by which we may come out to You; for we perceive that our death does not touch You.
18. May we also be saved with You, because You are our Savior.
19. Then I heard their voice, and placed their faith in my heart.
20. And I placed my name upon their head, because they are free and they are mine.
    Hallelujah.

A Letter Attributed to Clement of Alexandria

To Theodore.

You did well in silencing the unspeakable teachings of the Carpocrations. For these are "wandering stars" referred to in the prophecy, who wander from the narrow road of the commandments into a boundless abyss of the carnal and bodily sins. For, priding themselves in knowledge, as they say, "of the deep things of Satan, they do not know that they are casting themselves away into "the netherworld of the darkness" of falseness, and boasting that they are free, they have become slaves of servile desires. Such men are to be opposed in all ways and alltogether. For, even if they should say something true, one who loves the truth should not, even so, agree with them. For not all true things are the truth, nor should that truth which merely seems true according to human opinions be prefered to the true truth, that according to the faith.

Now of the things they keep saying about the divinely inspired Gospel according to Mark, some are altogether falsifications, and others, even if they do contain some true elements, nevertheless are not reported truely. For the true things being mixed with inventions, are falsified , so that, as the saying goes, even the salt loses its savor.

As for Mark, then, during Peter`s stay in Rome he wrote an account of the Lord`s doings, not, however, declaring all of them, nor yet hinting at the secret ones, but selecting what he thought most useful for increasing the faith of those who were being instructed. But when Peter died a martyr, Mark came over to Alexandria, bringing both his own notes and those of Peter, from which he transferred to his former books the things suitable to whatever makes for progress toward knowledge. Thus he composed a more spiritual Gospel for the use of those who were being perfected. Nevertheless, he yet did not divulge the things not to be uttered, nor did he write down the hierophantic teaching of the Lord, but to the stories already written he added yet others and, moreover, brought in certain sayings of which he knew the interpretation would, as a mystagogue , lead the hearers into the innermost sanctuary of truth hidden by seven veils. Thus, in sum, he prepared matters, neither grudgingly nor incautionously, in my opinion, and, dying, he left his composition to the church in 1, verso Alexandria, where it even yet is most carefully guarded, being read only to those who are being initated into the great mysteries.

But since the foul demons are always devising destruction for the race of men, Carpocrates, instructed by them and using deceitful arts, so enslaved a certain presbyter of the church in Alexandria that he got from him a copy of the secret Gospel, which he both interpreted according to his blasphemous and carnal doctrine and, moreover, polluted, mixing with the spotless and holy words utterly shameless lies. From this mixture is withdrawn off the teaching of the Carpocratians.

To them, therefore, as I said above, one must never give way ; nor, when they put forward their falsifications, should one concede that the secret Gospel is by Mark, but should even deny it on oath. For, "For not all true things are to be said to all men". For this reason the Wisdom of God, through Solomon, advises, "Answer the fool with his folly," , teaching that the light of the truth should be hidden from those who are mentally blind. Again it says, "From him who has not shall be taken away" and "Let the fool walk in darkness". But we are "children of Light" having been illuminated by "the dayspring" of the spirit of the Lord "from on high", and "Where the Spirit of the Lord is" , it says, "there is liberty", for "All things are pure to the pure".

To you, therefore, I shall not hesitate to answer the questions you have asked, refuting the falsifications by the very words of the Gospel. For example, after "And they were in the road going up to Jerusalem" and what follows, until "After three days he shall arise", the secret Gospel brings the following material word for word:

"And they come into Bethany. And a certain woman whose brother had died was there. And, coming, she prostrated herself before Jesus and says to him, "son of David, have mercy on me". But the disciples rebuked her. And Jesus, being angered , went off with her into the garden where the tomb was, and straightway, going in where the youth was, he stretched forth his hand and raised him, seizing his hand. But the youth, looking upon him, loved him and began to beseech him that he might be with him. And going out of the tomb they came into the house of the youth, for he was rich. And after six days Jesus told him what to do and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus thaught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. And thence, arising, he returned to the other side of the Jordan."

And these words follow the text, "And James and John come to him" and all that section. But "naked man with naked man" and the other things about which you wrote, are not found.

And after the words,"And he comes into Jericho," the secret Gospel adds only, "And the sister of the youth whom Jesus loved and his mother and Salome were there, and Jesus did not receive them." But many other things about which you wrote both seem to be and are falsifications.

nindza напиша: E ova e prava stvar A ne ke me lazat mene vamu tamu tuka ima logika

мнооооогу интересна тема а што е поважно и стара..најстара досега откриена тема од мене.

..а за тоа текстот,така е,мнооогу интересен и интересен и текст.