{"collection":"Gnosticism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/gno/fff/fff25.htm","path":"gno/fff/fff25.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/gno/fff/fff25.htm","text":"Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, by G.R.S. Mead, [1900]\nThe Spiritual Creation.IN the Unutterable Depth were two Great Lights, the First Man, or Father, and his Son, the Second Man; and also the Holy Spirit, the First Woman, or Mother of all living. Below this triad was a sluggish mass composed of the four great \"elements,\" called Water, Darkness, Abyss, and Chaos. The Universal Mother brooded over the Waters; enamoured of her beauty, the First and Second Man produced from her the third Great Light, the Christ; and He, ascending above, formed with the First and Second Man the Holy Church. This was the right-hand birth of the Great Mother. But a Drop of Light fell downwards to the left hand into chaotic matter; this was called Sophia, or Wisdom, the World-Mother. The Waters of the \u00c6ther were thus set in motion, and formed a body for Sophia (the Light-\u00c6on), viz., the Heaven-sphere. And she, freeing herself, left her body behind, and ascended to the Middle Region below her Mother (the Universal Mother), who formed the boundary of the Ideal Universe.\nBy her mere contact with the Space-Waters she had already generated a son, the chief Creative Power of the Sensible World, who retained some of the\n[paragraph continues] Light-fluid; this son was Ialdaba\u014dth (said by some to mean the Child of Chaos), who in his turn produced a son, and he another, until there were seven in all, the great Formative Powers of the Sensible Universe. And they were \"fighters,\" and quarrelled much with their fathers. And by means of this interplay of forces on matter came forth the \"mind,\" which was \"serpent-formed,\" and \"spirit,\" and \"soul,\" and all things in the world.\nAnd Ialdaba\u014dth was boastful and arrogant, and exclaimed: \"I am Father and God, and beyond me is Yahweh Ialdaba\u014dth. none other.\" But Sophia hearing this cried out to her son: \"Lie not, Ialdaba\u014dth, for above thee is the Father of All, the First Man, and Man the Son of Man.\" And all the Powers were astonished at the word; but Ialdaba\u014dth, to call off their attention, cried out: \"Let us make 'man' after our image.\" So they made \"man,\" and he lay like a worn on the ground, until they brought him to Ialdaba\u014dth, who breathed into him the \"breath of life,\" that is to say the Light-fluid he had received from Sophia, and so emptied himself of his Light. And \"man\" receiving it, immediately gave thanks to the First Man and disregarded his fabricators (the Eloh\u012bm).\nWhereupon Ialdaba\u014dth (Yahweh) was jealous and planned to deprive Adam of the Light-spark by O. T. Exegesis. forming \"woman.\" And the six creative powers were enamoured of Eve, and by her generated sons, namely, the angels. And so Adam again fell under the power of Ialdaba\u014dth and the Eloh\u012bm; then Sophia or Wisdom sent the \"serpent\" (\"mind\") into the Paradise of Ialdaba\u014dth, and Adam and Eve\nlistened to its wise councils, and so once more \"man\" was freed from the dominion of the Creative Power, and transgressed the ordinance of ignorance of any power higher than himself imposed by Ialdaba\u014dth. Whereupon Ialdaba\u014dth drove them out of his Paradise, and together with them the \"serpent\" or \"mind\"; but Sophia would not permit the Light-spark to descend, and so withdrew it to avoid profanation. And \"mind\" (the lower mind) the serpent-formed, the first product of Ialdaba\u014dth, brought forth six sons, and these are the \"d\u00e6monial\" powers, which plague men because their father was cast down for their sake.\nNow Adam and Eve before the fall had spiritual bodies, like the \"angels\" born of this Eve; but after their fall, down from the Paradise of Ialdaba\u014dth, their bodies grew more and more dense, and more and more languid, and became \"coats of skin,\" till finally Sophia in compassion restored to them the sweet odour of the Light, and they knew that they carried death about with them. And so a recollection of their former state came back to them, and they were patient, knowing that the body was put on only for a time.\nThe system then goes on to grapple with the legends of Genesis touching Cain and Noah, etc., and the Old Testament record generally, with moderate success; the main idea being that the prophets were inspired by one or other of the seven Eloh\u012bm, but occasionally Sophia had succeeded in impressing them with fragmentary revelations about the First Man and the Christ above.\nThe rest of the system is devoted to the question of the scheme of regeneration and the interpretation Christology. of the Mystery-myths. Sophia, or Wisdom, finding no rest in heaven or earth, implored the help of the Great Mother, and she in compassion begged of the First Man that the Christ should be sent to help her. And then Wisdom, knowing that her brother and spouse was coming to her aid, announced his coming by John, and by means of the \"baptism of repentance\" Jesus was made ready to receive him, as in a clean vessel. And so the Christ descended through the seven spheres, likening himself unto the Rulers, and draining them of their power, the Light they had retained all flowing back to him. And first of all the Christ clothed his sister Sophia with the Light-vesture, and they rejoiced together, and this is the mystical \"marriage\" of the \"bridegroom and the bride.\" Now Jesus, having been born of a \"virgin\" by the working of God (in other words, after the spiritual \"second birth\" had been attained by the ascetic Jesus), Christ and Sophia, the one enfolding the other, descended upon him and he became Jesus Christ.\nThen it was that he began to do mighty works, to heal, and to proclaim the Unknown Father, and Jesus. profess himself openly the Son of the First Man. Whereupon the Powers and especially Ialdaba\u014dth took measures to slay him, and so Jesus, the man, was \"crucified\" by them, but Christ and Sophia mounted aloft to the Incorruptible \u00c6on. But Christ did not forget the one in whom He had tabernacled, and so sent a power which raised up his body, not\nindeed his gross physical envelope, but a psychic and spiritual body. And those of his disciples who saw this body, thought he was risen in his physical frame, but to certain of them who were capable of receiving it, he explained the mystery, and taught them many other mysteries of the spiritual life. And Jesus now sits at the right hand of his father, Ialdaba\u014dth, and receives the souls who have received these mysteries. And in proportion as he enriches himself with souls, in such measure is Ialdaba\u014dth deprived of power; so that he is no longer able to send back holy souls into the world of reincarnation, but only those of his own substance; and the consummation of all things will be when all the Light shall once more be gathered up and stored in the treasures of the Incorruptible \u00c6on.\nSuch is the account of this by no means absurd scheme of the Gnosis preserved to us in the barbarous Latin translation of Iren\u00e6us\u2019 summary. That the original system was far more elaborate we may assume from the now known method of Iren\u00e6us to make a very brief summary of the tenets he criticized. The main features of the christological and soteriological part of the system is identical with the main outlines of the system of the Pistis Sophia, and of one of the treatises of the Codex Brucianus. This is a very important point, and indicates that the dates of these treatises need not necessarily be later than the time of the bishop of Lyons, but the consideration of this important subject must be reserved for the sequel. Interesting again is it to remark the influence of the Orphic,\n[paragraph continues] Pythagor\u00e6an, Platonic, and Hermetic tradition in the cosmological part, and to observe how both the Hellenic and Jewish myths find a common element in the Chald\u00e6an tradition.","title":"Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Gnosis According to its Foes: An Anonymous System From Iren\u00e6us","type":"page"}