{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30799/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30799","id":"gutenberg_30799","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30799","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Gnosticism"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber's note: in the Latin1 version of this etext, Greek\ncharacters have been transliterated.  In the UTF8 version, the actual\ncharacters have been used.  In the HTML version, HTML entities have\nbeen used.]\n\n\n\n\n\n[Frontispiece: THE GN\u00d4STIC CROSS (Codex Brucianus)]\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE GN\u00d4SIS OF THE LIGHT\n\n\n  A Translation of the Untitled Apocalypse\n  contained in the Codex Brucianus\n  with Introduction and Notes\n\n\n\n\nBY\n\nRev. F. LAMPLUGH, B.A. (Cantab.)\n\n\n\n\nLondon\n\nJohn M. Watkins\n\n21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C.2\n\n1918\n\n\n\n\nI have loved you, and have longed to give you Life.\n\nBlessed is he who crucifieth the World and hath not suffered the World\nto crucify him.\n\nBlessed is the man who knoweth these things, who hath brought Heaven\ndown upon Earth and hath taken Earth and hath lifted it up unto Heaven,\nand hath so wrought that the Midst is a Nothing.\n\n              _The Book of the Gnoses of the\n                Invisible God._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nIntroduction\n\nThe Gn\u00f4sis of the Light\n\nNotes\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTION\n\nThis translation of the ancient Gn\u00f4stic work, called by Schmidt, the\n_Untitled Apocalypse_, is based chiefly on Am\u00e9lineau's French version\nof the superior MS. of the Codex Brucianus, now in the Bodleian\nLibrary, Oxford.  In making the rendering I have studied the context\ncarefully, and have not neglected the Greek words interspersed with the\nCoptic; also I have availed myself of Mr Mead's translation of certain\nimportant passages from Schmidt's edition, for purposes of comparison.\nAnything that I have added to bring out the meaning of the Gn\u00f4stic\nauthor now and again, I have enclosed in brackets.  Such suggestions\nhave always arisen from the text.  I fancy my English version will be\nfound to give a reasonably accurate idea of the contents of one of the\nmost abstruse symbolical works in the world.  The notes that I have\nadded are not intended to be final or exhaustive, but to give the\ngeneral reader some guidance towards understanding the intensely\ninteresting topics with which the powerful mind of the ancient mystical\nwriter was preoccupied.  I have endeavoured to show myself a\nsympathetic \"Hierophant\" or expounder of some of the mysteries, not\nwithout study of the Gn\u00f4sis, both of the Christianised and purely\nHellenistic type, for the key to the understanding of symbolism is only\ngiven into the hands of sympathy.\n\nThe Codex Brucianus was brought to England from Upper Egypt, by the\nfamous traveller Bruce, in 1769, and bequeathed by him to the care of\nthe Bodleian Library, Oxford.  It contains several Gn\u00f4stic works\ntranslated into the Upper Egyptian dialect from the Greek, and probably\nis as old as the sixth century A.D.  The Greek originals were of course\nmuch older, that is to say, the MSS. to which the codex ultimately goes\nback were much older.  We are only concerned with one of them here, the\nso-called _Untitled Apocalypse_, which is markedly distinct from the\nothers in character and style.  Schmidt dates it well in the second\ncentury A.D., and with this estimate I am inclined to agree.  It shows,\nas I have endeavoured to make clear in the notes, marked affinities in\nsome respects to the _Gospel of Mary_ (Codex Akhmim), which we know to\nhave been in existence before 180 A.D., and its philosophical basis is\nthe Platonism of Alexandria.  If it is by one writer, I think it may be\ndated from 160 or 170 A.D.-200 A.D., and belongs to the period of\nBasilides and Valentinus.\n\nBefore venturing upon any discussion of the authorship and contents of\nour document, it would be as well to say a few words as to the meaning\nof that much misunderstood technical term \"Gn\u00f4sis\" in Hellenistic and\nearly Christian theology.  For a fuller exposition I would refer the\nreader to the admirable essay upon the subject by Mr G. R. S. Mead in\nhis volume _Quests Old and New_.  Gn\u00f4sis was not \"philosophy\" in the\ngenerally accepted sense of the term, or even religio-philosophy.  \"It\nwas immediate knowledge of God's mysteries received from direct\nintercourse with the Deity--mysteries which must remain hidden from the\nnatural man, a knowledge at the same time which exercises decided\nreaction on our relationship to God and also on our nature or\ndisposition\" (Reitzenstein).  It was the power or gift of receiving and\nunderstanding revelation, which finally culminated in the direct\nunveiled vision of God and the transformation of the whole man into\nspiritual being by contact with Him.  The ground of the idea of Gn\u00f4sis\ndoes not seem to be very different from that of the later \"Mystical\nTheology,\" \"which originally meant the direct, secret, and\nincommunicable knowledge of God received in contemplation\" (Dom John\nChapman).  The revelation sought for was not so much a dogmatic\nrevelation as a revelation of the processes of \"transmutation\" of\nRebirth, of Apotheosis or \"Deification.\"  Its aim was dynamic rather\nthan static.  But while the followers of the Gn\u00f4sis, both Christian and\nHellenistic, would have agreed that the direct knowledge of God is\nincommunicable to others, they undoubtedly seem to have held that there\nwere what may be described as intermediate or preparatory processes or\nenergisings which could be communicated: (1) by initiation into a holy\ncommunity; (2) by a duly qualified master; (3) under the veils of\nsymbols and sacraments.\n\nThe Gn\u00f4stic movement began long before the Christian era (what its\noriginal historical impulse was we do not know), and only one aspect of\nit, and that from a strictly limited point of view, has been treated by\necclesiastical historians.  Recent investigations have challenged the\ntraditional outlook and the traditional conclusions and the traditional\n\"facts.\"  With some to-day, and with many more to-morrow, the burning\nquestion is, or will be--not how did a peculiarly silly and licentious\nheresy rise within the Church--but how did the Church rise out of the\ngreat Gn\u00f4stic movement, and how did the dynamic ideas of the Gn\u00f4sis\nbecome crystallised into Dogmas?  I do not indicate a solution; I do\nnot express an opinion.  I call attention to a fact in the world of\nscholarship that will not be without its decided reaction upon the\nplain man.  But the study of the ancient Gn\u00f4sis, and indeed of\nmysticism generally, has left another suggestion that seems laden with\nlimitless possibilities.  Let us first go back to what I said as to the\ncommunication of certain \"processes,\" \"leavenings,\" or \"energisings\"\nunder a sacramental veil.  These processes were held to modify the\nnature of the person who submitted to them in a peculiar manner that\nwas likened to the impress or \"character\" of a seal upon wax.  These\nseals or \"characters\" could not only be acquired through formal rites\nand by the laying on of the hands of a master, but also, I am disposed\nto believe, by a certain mode of study--I am developing the Gn\u00f4stic\ntheory, not stating one of my own--namely, that of a highly symbolic\nliterature.  The objection of the Gn\u00f4stic to a plain statement of facts\nwould probably be somewhat as follows: \"What you say is very good and\ntrue as far as it goes, but it is 'Pistis,' not Gn\u00f4sis; Faith, not\nKnowledge.  You desire to be a changed man.  Pistis will change you to\na certain extent.  I have nothing to say against it, but it will not\nchange you in the radical way that Gn\u00f4sis does.\"  If you went on to\nargue that your statement was reasonable and received admirable support\nfrom logic and philosophy, he would probably reply: \"Philosophy of the\nkind you mention is excellent, and forms a basis for Gn\u00f4sis which is\nnot contrary to reason, though it is above it.  Gn\u00f4sis is a rebirth by\nwhich you become a god, and then you will have no need to find out\nthings by talking and discursive reasoning, for everything will be\nwithin yourself and you will know all things in a vital way, by an act\nof simple intuition in the end.  'The wind bloweth where it listeth,\nand thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it\ncometh, and whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the\nSpirit.'  If you tie yourself down to logic, you will not know the real\nthings, the 'Things that are,' by getting inside them.  Your knowledge\nwill be external, superficial.  Gn\u00f4sis, you may be surprised to learn,\nis not just 'knowing,' it is light _and_ 'life,' living and being as\nwell.  This must not be taken as an attacking reason; if you join our\nschool you will have a stiff course of Plato.  You ought to know the\n'Things that are' from the ordinary point of view, from outside, before\nyou approach them with the idea of getting inside them, and so raising\nthem up within yourself as far-shining lives.  Afterwards you will\nstudy in a new manner that will seem madness to the common-sensed; and\na Divine Madness indeed it is, for it will lead you to the secret of\nthe Cross.\"\n\nHence the disciple was confronted in due time with a document that\nwould not yield its secrets to dialectic, a kind of ritual in words\nthat initiated his intuition into self-knowledge.  Intense devotion was\nneeded, imagination, and will-power.  The Gn\u00f4sis came gradually,\nperhaps after the manuscript had been laid aside; it was the effort\ntowards a sympathetic understanding that mattered, that was rewarded\nwith life and light from God.  The mere success of the logical mind in\nunravelling a puzzle was as nothing, for the readings of these\nmonstrous, many-faceted stars of symbolism were infinite.  That the\nintuition should enter into self awareness as into a sacred place of\nthe mysteries--that was a process of the Gn\u00f4sis.\n\nNow this strange way of teaching, which was really a \"Cloud of\nUnknowing,\" was the real basis and point, as it were, of the\nAlexandrine method of interpreting Scripture.  Think of Philo and what\nhe says of the teaching of his Gn\u00f4stic Therapeuts.  Think of Clement,\nand of Origen with his \"Eternal Gospel.\"  This quickening of the\nintuition into knowledge of itself and God, through allegory and symbol\nbased on philosophy, was the Everlasting Gospel.\n\nSo Gn\u00f4stic documents were not merely intended to puzzle the outsider,\nbut the insider as well.  This fact will enable us to appreciate better\nBasilides' famous remark about the one or two only who could understand\nhis system.  His frame of mind was a little like that of a university\nexaminer after setting a paper.  We need not think that these people\nwere altogether destitute of humour.  It would be a gross exaggeration,\nof course, to say that all the Gn\u00f4stic systems described in Irenaeus\nand Hippolytus might have been devised by the same man, but it would be\na useful exaggeration, illustrating the extreme anti-literalist point\nof view.  Our knowledge of the schools rests for the most part on\nreports made upon documents such as these, the purport of which was\nentirely missed by those that made them.  They treated Gn\u00f4sis as if it\nwere another kind of \"Pistis,\" or another system of philosophy.  One\ndoubts very much the correctness of the traditional classification of\nschools, which was made by people who were not in very close touch with\nthem.  One doubts if there was much hostility between these schools,\nhowever much their symbolism may appear to differ on the surface.\n\nWhat was the result of these processes \"initiated\" or \"started\" by\nsacramental rites, by symbolism, by masters of Gn\u00f4sis?  Was the result\nsomething purely \"subjective\" at best?  The answer of the Masters of\nthe Gn\u00f4sis to this question, which is characteristic of the modern mind\nand expresses the doubt which is gnawing at the heart of much modern\nreligious life, would have been \"No.  There are certain physical\nchanges as well.  The body is spiritualised.\"  They might possibly have\nadded, \"It is assumed, in part at least, by the Body of Stars[1] which\nhas been awakened within it.  This is the Body by means of which Union\nwith God takes place, and then still more wonderful changes happen.  We\ncan awaken the Body of Stars or Rays, but to unite it with Himself,\nthat depends upon the Will of God above, but all is a mystery of Grace.\"\n\nThis awakening of the Body of Stars, this assumption, or partial\nassumption, by immortality of the inner flesh, is the interesting\npossibility to which I referred earlier.  Let me here quote two\nCatholic writers.  Says D\u00f6llinger (_First Age_, p. 235, quoting Rom.\nvii. 22, 1 Cor. vi. 14, Eph. iii. 16 and 30, in support), \"Saint Paul\nnot only divides man into body and spirit, but distinguishes in the\nbodily nature, the gross, visible, bodily frame and a hidden, inner\n'spiritual' body not subject to limits of space or cognisable by the\nsenses; this last, which shall hereafter be raised, is alone fit for\nand capable of organic union with the glorified body of Christ, of\nsubstantial incorporation with it.\"  Dom John Chapman, O.S.B., in his\nexcellent article on \"Catholic Mysticism\" in Hastings' _Encyclopaedia\nof Religion and Ethics_, vol. ix., writes: \"It is not to be denied that\nthis psycho-physical side demands scientific investigation.  It seems\ncertain that St John of the Cross is justified in his view that the\nbody is somehow 'spiritualised' by contemplation.  Such facts as the\npower of saints over the animal world and the power of reading\nthoughts, _e.g._, are proved beyond cavil.\"\n\nHere, then, we have a consistent tradition held by many schools, and I\nthink that it is by investigation along the lines suggested by Dom John\nChapman that there is the greatest chance of arriving at some proof of\nimmortality that will satisfy the scientific mind.  For the claim of\nmystics is that here and now it is possible to participate consciously\nin that which is immortal, and the \"spiritualising\" of the body is an\noutward sign of the substantiality of that claim, the standard set up\nupon a hill to testify that the human consciousness is not planetary\nmerely, not \"hylic,\" nor \"psychic,\" but has its root in the wisdom that\nissues from an inconceivable Abyss of Life and Light.\n\nI believe that the original source of the document I have translated\nbelonged to an Egyptian community or school of contemplation whose name\nhas been forgotten in the night of time; that it was connected with the\npreparation of a candidate for the Baptism of Light.  What form this\nrite really took it is impossible to say, but that it had outward signs\nof some kind is extremely probable.  We have an old Gn\u00f4stic ritual\npreserved in the compilation generally known as the \"Acts of John.\"\nPerhaps this may give us some idea of the sort of ceremony that was\nworked.  I fancy there was an Eucharistic side, and that the Baptism of\nLight was connected with the mystic crucifixion alluded to so often in\nthe notes.  Possibly in the midst of the sacred dance, at the breaking\nof the Bread, there was a certain laying on of hands by an adept\nMaster, one who had himself attained to the autoptic vision, and then\nthe candidate was left alone to immerse himself in the Dark Ray of the\nDivine Mind.\n\nI think also that the original MS. was based upon the work of one\nMaster, whose name, like that of the order to which he belonged, is\nlost in the night of time, but that it also contains amplifications and\nadditions by at least one later hand.  It will thus represent the mind\nof a grade of teaching, and possibly contains material dating back to\nthe period of the Therapeutae that Philo knew.  In other words, the\ncommunity may have been an old one before it was Christianised.  In any\ncase, it remains the record of a stupendous spiritual adventure, the\nattempt to produce a race of Divinised men, that is not without the\nsplendour of tragedy, for at some time, like the Holy Cup of Legend,\nthe presence of Masterhood departed, and the external house fell into\nruin and its place knew it no more.  Perhaps, in the desire to\npropagate, it admitted unworthy candidates; perhaps it turned to the\nby-ways of magic in an attempt to arrest the external course of nature\nand to defy necessity; perhaps there came a day when none could\nunderstand the inner meaning of the high and far-shining mysteries, and\nso amidst party strife the building word was lost.  Many a man, no\ndoubt, who called himself a \"Gn\u00f4stic\" was but a sorry rogue; many\nanother was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another\nwas but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic\nin his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered\nalong the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a\nformula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into\nHeaven.  But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant\nidleness and of corruption, the _\u00e0 rebours_ of a spiritual outpouring,\nthere was a real mysticism that could present the Authentic Spectacle\nand could utter comfortable words in tongues not of this world utterly.\nThere was a Gn\u00f4sis that strove to give the Peace of God to those within\nand to those without, because in Peace all things were made, that\nyearned to bring forth children, quickened fiery souls, \u00e6ons, gods, in\nbodies of light for the love of God; that saw in all things Grace, the\nSponsa Dei, the Mother most pure and immaculate.  \"No creature was ever\nwronged of Thee,\" no spark ever quenched, no hope defrauded and hurled\neternally from the sky with shattered wings by Thee.  Such is the fair\nFaith that chanted its prayer beneath a heaven set with such strange\ngalaxies, and whispers to us now through the disremembered symbols of a\nforgotten book.\n\nIt is pleasant, in these days of strife, to be able to quote Dr\nSchmidt's appreciation of the _Untitled Apocalypse_ with a cordial\nagreement:\n\n\"What a different world, on the contrary, meets us in our thirty-one\nleaves!  We find ourselves in the pure spheres of the highest Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma;\nwe see, step by step, this world, so rich in heavenly beings, coming\ninto existence before our eyes; each individual space with all its\ninmates is minutely described, so that we can form for ourselves a\nliving picture of the glory and splendour of this Gn\u00f4stic heaven.  The\nspeculations are not so confused and fantastic as those of the Pistis\nSophia and our two Books of Jeu....  The author is imbued with the\nGreek spirit, equipped with a full knowledge of Greek philosophy, full\nof the doctrine of the Platonic ideas, an adherent of Plato's view of\nthe origin of evil--that is to say, Hyle....  We possess in these\nleaves a magnificently conceived work by an old Gn\u00f4stic philosopher,\nand we stand astonished, marvelling at the boldness of the\nspeculations, dazzled by the richness of the thought, touched by the\ndepth of soul of the author.  This is not, like the Pistis Sophia, the\nproduct of declining Gn\u00f4sticism, but dates from a period when Gn\u00f4stic\ngenius, like a mighty eagle, left the world behind it and soared in\nwide and ever wider circles towards pure light, towards pure knowledge,\nin which it lost itself in ecstasy.\n\n\"In one word, we possess in this Gn\u00f4stic work, as regards age and\ncontents, a work of the very highest importance, which takes us into a\nperiod of Gn\u00f4sticism, and therefore of Christianity, of which very\nlittle knowledge has been handed down to us.\"\n\nFinally, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the scholarship of Mr\nG. R. S. Mead, whose labours in the field of Hellenistic Theology have\nto my mind received insufficient recognition, and whose admirable\ntranslations I have often used in the notes.\n\n\n\n[1] Not to be confused with the \"astral body\" of modern theosophy.\n\n\n\n\nThe Gn\u00f4sis of the Light\n\n[1]This is the Father of all Fathers, the God of all ... Gods, Lord of\nall Lords, Sonship of all Sons, Saviour of all Saviours, Invisible of\nall Invisibles, Infinity of all Infinities, Uncontainable of all\nUncontainables, Beyond-the-Deep of all Beyond-the-Deeps, Space of all\nSpaces.  This is the Spiritual Mind which existed before all Spiritual\nMinds, the Holy Place comprehending all Holy Places, the Good\ncomprehending all Goods.  This is the Seed of all good things.  It is\nHe who has brought them all forth, this Autophues or Being who has\nproduced Himself, who existed before all the beings of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma\nwhich He Himself has brought forth, Who is in all time.  This is that\nIngenerable and Eternal One who has no name and who has all names; who\nwas the first to know those of the Universe, who has looked upon those\nof the Universe, who has heard those of the Universe.  He is mightier\nthan all might, upon whose incomprehensible Face no one is able to\ngaze.  Beyond all mind does He exist in His own Form, Solitary and\nUnknowable.  The Universal Mystery is He, the Universal Wisdom, of all\nthings the Beginning.  In Him are all Lights, all Life, and all Repose.\nHe is the Beatitude of which all in the Universe are in need, for that\nthey might receive Him they are.  All beings of the Universe does He\nbehold within Himself, that One Uncontainable, who parts those of the\nUniverse and receives them all into Himself.  Without Him is nothing,\nfor all the worlds exist in Him, and He is the boundary of them all.\nAll of them has He enclosed, for in Him is all.  No Space is there\nwithout Him, nor any Intelligence; for without that Only One there\nexists nothing.  The Eternities (\u00e6ons) contemplate His\nincomprehensibility which is within them all, but understand it not.\nThey wonder at it because He limits them all.  They strive towards the\nCity in which is their Image.  In this City (1) it is that they move\nand live [and have their true being]; for it is the House of the\nFather, the Robe of the Son, and the Power of the Mother, the Image of\nthe Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  He is the First Father of all things, the First Eternal,\nthe King of those that None can Touch; He in whom all things lose\nthemselves, He who has given all things form within Himself; the Space\nwhich has grown from Itself, He who is born of Himself, the Abyss of\nall being, the Great and True One who is in the Deep; He in whom the\nFullnesses (Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata) did come, and even they are silent before Him.\nThey have not named Him, because Unnamable and beyond thought is He,\nthat First Fount whose Eternity stretches through all Spaces, that\nFirst Tone (2) whereby all things hearken and understand.  He it is\nwhose limbs make a myriad, myriad Powers, and every Power is a being in\nitself.\n\nThe Second Space is that which is called Creator, Father, Word, Source,\nMind, Man, Eternal, Infinite.  He is the Pillar, the Overseer, the\nFather of all.  He it is upon whose Head the \u00e6ons form a crown, darting\nforth their rays.  The Fullness of His Countenance is unknown to the\nexternal worlds who seek His Face, for evermore yearning to know It;\nfor unto them His Word has run forth and to behold It is their desire.\nThe Light of His Eyes pierces to the spaces of the external Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma and\nthe Word goes forth from His Mouth to those who dwell in Heaven and to\nthose who dwell beneath it.  The hairs of His Head are the number of\nthe Hidden Worlds, and the Features of His Face are the type of the\nEternities; the hairs of His Beard are the number of the External\nWorlds.  The stretching out of His Hands is the manifestation of the\nCross (3).  The strain of the Cross is the Ennead, the Ninefold Being.\nHe who springs up [? or is nailed] to the right and to the left of the\nCross is the Man whom no man can comprehend.  He is the Father, the\nFount whence Silence wells, He for whom the Quest is everywhere.  The\nFather is He from whom went forth the Monad and the Spark of Light, and\nbefore this all the Worlds were dark nothings.  For it is that Spark of\nLight which has placed all things in the rays of Its Splendour, so they\nhave received Knowledge [Gn\u00f4sis], Life, Hope, Peace, Faith, Love and\nResurrection, the Second Birth and the Seal.  Now these things are the\nEnnead, the Ninefold Being, which has come forth from the Father\nwithout beginning, who alone has been His own Father and His own\nMother, whose Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma surrounds the twelve (4) Deeps.\n\nThe First Deep is the Universal Fount, from whom all fountains have\ngone forth.\n\nThe Second Deep is the Universal Wisdom, from whom all wisdoms have\ngone forth.\n\nThe Third Deep is the Universal Mystery, from whom all mysteries have\ngone forth.\n\nThe Fourth Deep is the Universal Gn\u00f4sis, from whom all Gn\u00f4ses have gone\nforth.\n\nThe Fifth Deep is the Universal Purity, from whom all purity has gone\nforth.\n\nThe Sixth Deep is the Silence that contains all silences.\n\nThe Seventh Deep is the Universal Super-essential Essence, from whom\nall essences have gone forth.\n\nThe Eighth Deep is the Forefather from whom and by whom all forefathers\nexist.\n\nThe Ninth Deep is the All-Father, Self-Father, in whom is the\nAll-Paternity of those who are Self-Fathers of the all.\n\nThe Tenth Deep is the All-Power, from whom all powers have gone forth.\n\nThe Eleventh Deep is that in which there is the First Invisible, from\nwhom have gone forth all invisibles.\n\nThe Twelfth Deep is the Truth, from whence all truths have sped forth.\n\nNow the Truth (5) which envelops all things is the Image of the Father,\nthe End of all things.  She is the Mother of all Eternities, who\nsurrounds all Deeps, the Monad beyond knowledge who cannot be known,\nwithout seal-mark and having all seal-marks within, blessed for ever\nand ever.  To the Father Ineffable, Inconceivable, Unthinkable,\nUnchangeable, all things have been made like in their being.  They\nrejoiced and have been filled with life-giving powers.  They engendered\nmyriads and myriads and myriads of \u00e6ons, and in Joy, because they\nrejoiced with the Father (6).\n\nThese are the worlds from which the Cross upsprang, and from their\nincorporeal limbs the Man has come forth.  It is the Father and Fount\nof all being who has produced the limbs.\n\nNow from the Father are all names (7), whether Ineffable One, or\nIncorruptible One, or Invisible One, or Simple One, or Solitary One, or\nPowerful One, or Triple-powered One, or the names that in Silence alone\nare named.  In the Father are they all, and He it is whom the Outer\nWorlds behold [as men behold] the starry sky at night.  Even as men [so\ngazing into the night] desire to see the Sun, so do the Outer Worlds\ndesire to see Him because of the very Invisibility which surrounds Him.\nHe it is who to the \u00e6ons gives life perpetually, and by His Word hath\nthe Indivisible ... the Monad in order to know it.  For it is by His\nWord that the Holy Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma exists.  This is the Father, the Second\nCreator, by the breath of whose Mouth Providence (Pronoia) has been in\ntravail of those who were not, and it is by His Will that they are....\nThis is the Father, Ineffable, Unspeakable, Beyond Knowledge,\nInvisible, Immeasurable, Infinite.  He has produced those that are in\nHim within Himself.  The Thought of His Greatness has He brought forth\nfrom non-being that He might make them to be.  Incomprehensible is He\nin His limbs.  A Space has He made for His limbs that they might dwell\nin Him and know Him for their Sire.  From His First Thought (8) has He\nmade them come forth, and she has become a Space for them and given\nthem being....\n\nIn this wise has He created the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  At the four\ngates of the [Temple of] the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma are four Monads, a Monad at each\ngate, and six Supporters at each gate, in all four and twenty\nSupporters, and four and twenty myriads of powers at each gate, nine\nEnneads at each gate, ten Decads at each gate, twelve Dodecads at each\ngate, and five Pentads of Powers at each gate.  At each gate there is\nan Overseer of triple aspect having countenances Ingenerable, True, and\nIneffable.  Of these faces one gazes upon the external \u00e6ons without the\ngate; another beholds S\u00eatheus, and the third looks upward to the\nSonship contained in every Monad.  There it is that Aphr\u00eadon is\ndiscovered with his twelve Holy Ones and the Forefather, and in that\nSpace abides also Adam, the Man of the Light, with his three hundred\n\u00e6ons.  There also is the Perfect Mind.  All these surround a Basket (9)\nthat knows no death.  The Ineffable face of the Overseer, who is the\nWarden of the Holy Place, gazes into the Holy of Holies upon the\nBoundless One.  Now this Warden has faces twain.  One is disclosed from\nthe side of the Deep, the other from the side of the Overseer called\nthe Child (or Servant).  For there is a Deep [within the Holy of\nHolies] which is named \"Light\" (10), or \"He who gives the Light,\" and\nin this Abyss there is concealed an Alone-begotten Son.  He it is who\nmanifests the Three Powers, who is mighty amongst all Powers.\n\nThis (? the Holy of Holies) is the Indivisible One, [the atom--Body or\nChurch] that can never be divided, in whom the All is discovered,\nbecause all powers are hers.\n\nHe who is the Triple Power has three faces, an Aphr\u00eadonian face that is\ncalled Aphr\u00eadon P\u00eaxos, in which is found a latent Only-begotten One.\n\nWhen the (?) Idea comes out of the Deep, Aphr\u00eadon takes the Thought to\nconduct her to the Alone-begotten of Alone-begottens, to lead her to\nthe Child, so that she may be brought to the Space of the Triple Power\nfor self-perfecting, and be escorted in the Space of the Five\nIngenerables.\n\nThere is also another Space called the Deep, where there are three\nPaternities.  In the first thereof is Kalupt\u00f4, the Hidden God.  In the\nSecond Paternity there are Five Trees, and in the midst of them an\naltar.  An Alone-begotten Word stands upon the altar, having the twelve\ncountenances of the Mind of all things, and before him are the prayers\nof all beings placed.  The Universe rejoices over him because he has\nmanifested himself.  He it is that the Invisible World has struggled to\nknow, and it is on his account that the Man has appeared.  In the Third\nPaternity is Silence and the Fount which twelve Anointed Ones\ncontemplate, beholding themselves therein.  In him are also found Love\nand the Universal Mind and furthermore the Universal Mother from whom\nhas gone forth that Ennead whose names are Pr\u00f4tia, Pantia, Pangenia,\nLoxophania, Loxogenia, Loxokrateia, L\u00f4ia, and Iou\u00eal.  She is the First\nBeyond Knowledge, the Mother of the Ennead, who completes a Decad, come\nforth from the Monad of the Unknowable.\n\nFollowing there is another Space, more stretched out, where is hidden a\ngreat treasure which the Universe surrounds.  [This Space] is the\nImmeasurable Deep where is an altar whereon three Powers are gathered:\na Solitary being, an Unknowable being, and an Infinite being, in the\nmidst of whom is revealed a Sonship called the Anointed Glorifier.\nThis is he who glorifies everyone and impresses upon him the seal of\nthe Father, who brings everybody into the eternity of the First Father\nwho is the One, He for whose sake all is and without whom nothing is.\nNow this Anointed One has twelve faces, visages Unbounded,\nUncontainable, Ineffable, Simple, Imperishable, Solitary, Unknowable,\nInvincible, Thrice-powerful, Unshakable, Ingenerable, and Pure.  These\nSpaces, where are these twelve founts, named Founts of Reasons, full of\neternal life, are called Deeps as well as the Twelve Countenances,\nbecause they have received in them all Spaces of Paternity on behalf of\nthe Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata and the Fruit which the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma emanated, who is Christ\nwho has received the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma in Himself.\n\nBeyond all these Spaces comes the Deep of S\u00eatheus.  This he who is in\nthem all and is surrounded by twelve Paternities, even in the midst of\nthese is he.  Each Paternity has three faces.  The first of them is an\nIndivisible One, and three faces has he, Infinite, Invisible, and\nIneffable faces.  The Second Father has Uncontainable, Unshakable, and\nIncorruptible faces.  The Third Father has faces Beyond Knowledge,\nImperishable, and Aphr\u00eadonian.  The Fourth Father has a countenance of\nSilence, a face of Founts, and a visage Impalpable.  The Fifth Father\nhas Solitary, Omnipotent, and Ingenerable faces.  The Sixth Father has\nthe face of an All-Father, the face of a Self-Father, and the face of a\nForefather.  The Seventh Father has countenances of Universal Mystery,\nof Universal Wisdom and Universal Origin.  Visages has the Eighth\nFather of Light, Repose, and Resurrection.  The Ninth Father has faces\nKnowable, First Visible, and...  The Tenth Father has Triple-fleshed,\nAdamic, and Pure faces.  The Eleventh Father has faces Triple-powered,\nPerfect, and Sparkling.  The Twelfth Father has a face of Truth, a face\nof Fore-thought, and a face of After-thought.  These are the twelve\nPaternities which encircle S\u00eatheus.  [Their faces] make in all a\n[mystic] number thirty-six.  These are they from whom those of the\nexterior have received a seal-mark, that is why they glorify them for\nevermore (11).\n\nIn that Space there are yet twelve other paternities who encircle the\nhead [of S\u00eatheus] and support a crown there.  They dart out rays upon\nthe surrounding worlds by the Grace of the Alone-begotten Word,\nconcealed in him, He that is sought for.\n\n[_The passage enclosed within brackets has been so mutilated by the\nCoptic scribe that what follows is of the nature of a paraphrase rather\nthan of a translation_:--(As to the mysteries of the Word that are so\nmuch beyond us, it is not possible to describe them otherwise than as\nfollows.  Not possible for us, that is.  It is impossible to describe\nHim as He really is with a tongue of flesh.  There are glories too\nexalted for descriptions moved by thought and for intuition that comes\nthrough symbols, except one finds a master who is a kinsman of the\ndeathless race yonder.  From such an one can be learned something of\nthe Spaces from whence he came; for he finds the root of all things.\nThe mighty powers of the great \u00e6ons of the Power that was in Marsanes\nhave said in adoration, \"Who is he who hath seen aught in the presence\nof His Face?\"  That is because thus does He manifest Himself [? the\nAlone to the Alone], Nicotheos has spoken of Him [the Alone-begotten]\nand seen Him, for he is one of these.  He [Nicotheos] said, \"The Father\nexists exalted above all the perfect.\"  Nicotheos has revealed the\nInvisible and the perfect Triple-power.  All perfect men have seen Him,\nthey have declared Him and have given Him glory with their own lips)\n(12).] That is the Alone-begotten Word hidden in S\u00eatheus, He who is\ncalled the Dark Ray (13), for it is the excess of His light alone that\nis darkness.  S\u00eatheus reigns by Him.\n\nThe Alone-begotten holds in His right hand twelve Paternities, the\ntypes of the twelve Apostles (14), while in His left hand are thirty\nPowers.  Each of them emanates twelve two-faced \u00e6ons after the type of\nS\u00eatheus.  One of these faces beholds the Deep which is in the Interior\n[of the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma]; the other looks without upon the\nTriple-Power.  Each of the Paternities in His right hand emanates three\nhundred and sixty-five powers, according to the word that David spake,\nsaying, \"I will cherish the crown of the year in Thy Righteousness.\"\nFor all these Powers encircle the Alone-begotten Son as a crown,\nilluminating the \u00e6ons with the light of the Alone-begotten, as it is\nwritten, \"In Thy light shall we see light.\" And the Alone-begotten is\nlifted up upon [the powers], as again it is written, \"The Chariot of\nGod is a myriad of multiplications\"; and again, \"There are millions of\nbeings who rejoice; the Lord is in them\" (15).\n\nThis is He who dwells in the Monad in S\u00eatheus, which comes from the\nplace concerning which one does not ask, \"Where is it?\"  She comes from\nHim who is before these Fullnesses.  From the One and Only, even from\nHim has come forth the Monad, as a ship laden with all good things, or\nas a full field planted with every manner of tree, or as a city filled\nwith men of every race and with all the statues of the king.  Thus it\nis with the Monad where the Whole is found.\n\nUpon her head twelve Monads form a crown; each has emanated another\ntwelve.  Ten Decads encircle her neck, nine Enneads are about her\nheart, and seven Hebdomads are under her feet, and each has emanated a\nHebdomad.  The firmament which surrounds her is like a tower with\ntwelve gates, and at every gate are twelve myriads of powers;\narchangels are they called, or angels.  This is the metropolis of the\nAlone-begotten Son (16).\n\nNow it is of the Alone-begotten that Ph\u00f4silampes (17) has said, \"Before\nall things is He.\"  He it is who has come forth from the Infinite; He\nwho has engendered Himself there and has no seal nor form and has given\nbirth to Himself.  This is He who is come forth from the Ineffable One,\nthe Immeasurable One, who truly is, and in whom is found all that truly\nis, who is the Father Incomprehensible.  He is in His Alone-begotten\nSon, while the All reposes in the Ineffable and Unspeakable King, whom\nnone can move and whose Divinity no one can declare, whose kingdom is\nnot of this world.  Meditating upon Him, Ph\u00f4silampes has said, \"Through\nHim is That-which-really-is and That-which-really-is-not, through which\nthe Hidden-which-really-is and the Manifest-which-really-is-not exists.\"\n\nHe is the true Alone-begotten God, and all the Fullnesses (Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata)\nknow that it is by Him that they have become gods and that they have\nbecome rulers in this name--God.  This is He of whom John has said, \"In\nthe beginning was the Word, and the Word was in God and the Word was\nGod, and without Him was not anything made.  That which was made in Him\nwas Life.\"\n\nThe Alone-begotten is found in the Monad, dwelling in her as in a city,\nand the Monad is in S\u00eatheus as a concept, and S\u00eatheus dwells in the\nTemple as King and as God.  He is the Word creative, who has commanded\nthe Fullnesses to labour; the Creative Mind after the order of God the\nFather, whom all creation worships as God and Lord, to whom all is\nsubjected.\n\nThe Fullnesses wonder at Him [S\u00eatheus] because of His beauty and grace.\nAround His head those of the Inner Spaces of the Universe form a crown;\nthose of the external spaces are beneath His feet, while those of the\nmiddle spaces encircle Him, all praising Him and saying, \"Holy, Holy,\nHoly, AAA, HHH, EEE, III, OOO, YYY, +\u00d4\u00d4\u00d4+\"--that is to say, \"Thou art\nthe Living One of Living Ones, Holy of Holies, Being of Beings, Father\nof Fathers, God of Gods, Lord of Lords, Space of Spaces\" (18).  They\npraise Him, saying, \"Thou art the House and the Dweller in the House.\"\nThey praise Him, saying unto the Son concealed in Him, \"Thou art: Thou\nart, O Alone-begotten, Light and Life and Grace.\"\n\nWhen S\u00eatheus sent the Light-Spark from the Indivisible [Body], it\nburned and gave light to all the Space of the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata.\nAnd they, beholding the light of the Spark, rejoiced and uttered\nmyriads and myriads of praises in honour of S\u00eatheus and of the\nLight-Spark which was manifested, seeing that in it were all their\nimages, and they fashioned the Spark among themselves as a Man\nlight-giving and true.  They named Him \"Pantomorphos,\" and Pure, and\nUnshakable, and all the eternities also called him \"All-powered.\"  He\nis the Servant of the \u00c6ons and serves the Fullnesses (19).  And the\nFather sealed the Man His Son in their interior so that they might know\nHim interiorly, and the Word moved them to contemplate the Invisible\nOne beyond knowledge, and they gave glory to this One and Only One, to\nthe Concept which is in Him and to the Intelligible Word, praising\nthese Three who are One, because by Him have they been made essential\nbeings.  The Father took their total image and made of it a City or a\nMan and figured in Him all those of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, that is to say, all\nthe powers.  Each one of them knew his image in the City, for everyone\nof the myriads of glories found himself in the Man or City of the\nFather which is in the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  The Father took His radiant glory and\nmade thereof an outer vesture for the Man....\n\nHe created in Him the type of the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  He made His\nshoulders, which came out one from the other, after the type of those\nhundred myriads of powers, less four myriads.  He created His fingers\nand toes like the two Decads, the hidden Decad and the manifest Decad.\nHe created His organ like the Monad concealed in S\u00eatheus.  He created\nthe great reins like S\u00eatheus.  He made His breast like the Interior of\nthe Temple and His feet after the type of the Solitary and Unknowable\nOnes who serve the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, rejoicing with those that rejoice.  He made\nHis limbs after the type of the Deep which encloses three hundred and\nsixty-five Paternities after the type of the Paternities.  He fashioned\nHis hair after the type of the Worlds of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma and filled Him\nwith wisdom like the Universal Wisdom, and filled Him with interior\nmystery like S\u00eatheus and with exterior mystery like the Indivisible\n[Body].  Incomprehensible created He Him like the Incomprehensible One,\nwho is in every Space, unique in the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  His sides created He\nafter the type of the Four Gates and His two thighs after the type of\nthe Myriarchs who are to the right and left, and His members after the\ntype of those who go forth and those who enter.  He created companions\nsurrounding Him after the type of concealed mysteries....\n\n[This was the Man or City that the Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata beheld in the Light-Spark\nand saw their likenesses therein.  They fashioned the Man called\nPantomorphos in His likeness, or clothed the Light-Spark in the\nStar-body.]\n\nThe Indivisible Point sent the Light-Spark without the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, and\n[He] descended [as] the Triple-Power into the Spaces of Autog\u00e8nes, the\nSelf-generated One, and [these Spaces] beheld the grace of the\nEternities of Light which had been given unto them, and they rejoiced\nbecause that-which-is had come among them.\n\nThen they opened the firmaments and the Light descended below to the\nlower regions and to those who were without form, having no [true]\nlikeness.  It was thus that they got the likeness of the Light for\nthemselves.  Some rejoiced because the Light had come to them, and that\nthey had been made rich thereby.  Others mourned because they were made\npoor and that which [they thought] they had was taken away from them.\nThus came He, who went forth full of grace, and was taken captive with\na captivity (20).  A light of glory was given to the \u00e6ons who had\nreceived the Spark, and guardian spirits were sent to them who are\nGaman\u00eal, Etrempsouchos, and Agramas, and those who are with them.  They\nbring help to those who have believed in the Spark of Light.\n\nNow in the Space of the Indivisible Atom are twelve Founts, above which\nare the twelve Paternities who surround the Indivisible [Queen] like\nDeeps or like Skies and make for Her a crown in which is every kind of\nlife: all modes of Triple-powered life, of Uncontainable life, of\nInfinite life, of Ineffable life, of Silent life, of Unknown life, of\nSolitary life, of Unshakable life, of First-manifested life, of\nSelf-born life, of True life.  All is therein.  Every species is in it,\nall Gn\u00f4ses and every power which has received the Light, yea, all Mind\nmanifests itself therein.  This is the Crown which the Father of the\nUniverse has placed upon the Indivisible [Queen] with three hundred and\nsixty-five kinds in it, brilliant and filling the Universe with an\nincorruptible and unfailing light.  This is the Crown which crowns all\ndominion, the Crown that the Deathless pray for, and by it and in it\nthey will become Invisible Ones [in the world beyond manifestation] on\nthe Day of Joy, who by the Will of the Inscrutable One have from the\nfirst been manifested, that is to say, Pr\u00f4tia, Pantia, Pangenia, and\ntheir company.  Then shall all the Invisible Eternities receive from\nHim their crown, so that they may cast themselves among the Invisibles,\nwho shall receive there their crown in the Crown of the Indivisible\n[Queen], and the Universe shall receive its perfection of incorruption.\nBecause of this it is that those who have taken bodies pray, desiring\nto abandon the body that they may receive the crown laid up for them in\nthe Incorruptible Eternity.\n\nThis is the Indivisible [Queen and Mother], the first \u00e6on of all, who\nhas been given all good things by Him who is above all good things, and\nshe has been given the Immeasurable Deep, wherein are found innumerable\nPaternities, whereof is the Ennead without seal-mark and having in her\nthe seal-marks of all creatures, and by whom the Ennead emanates twelve\nEnneads.  She [the Indivisible Mother it is] who has in the midst a\nSpace called \"The Land productive of Gods,\" or \"The Land which gives\nbirth to the Gods\" (21).  This is the land of which it has been said,\n\"He who ploughs his soil shall be satisfied with bread and he shall\nmake large his threshing floor,\" and also, \"The Master of the Field,\nwhen they shall plough it, shall possess all good things.\"  And all\nthose Powers which are in this land which brought forth the God have\nreceived the Crown.  That is why they know, because of the Crown upon\ntheir heads, if the Inheritors of the Kingdom of Light have [? in\ntruth] been born from the Indivisible Body or not: that is, from Her\nwho is the Universal Mother (22).  She has within Her seven Wisdoms,\nnine Enneads, ten Decads, and in the midst a great Basket is revealed.\nA mighty Invisible [Hierarch] stands above it with a mighty Ingenerable\n[Hierarch] and a mighty Unbounded [Hierarch], each one\ntriple-countenanced, and the prayer, the blessing, and the hymn of\ncreatures are given place in this Basket which is in the midst of the\nUniversal Mother, in the midst of the seven Wisdoms, in the midst of\nthe nine Enneads, and in the midst of the ten Decads.  For all these\n[creatures] stand upright in the Basket, made perfect by the Fruit of\nthe \u00c6ons, He who has been ordained for them by the Alone-begotten\nconcealed in the Indivisible [Atom].  He [the Fruit of the \u00c6ons] has a\nFount before Him surrounded by twelve Holy Ones, each one wearing a\nCrown on his head and having twelve powers, who surround Him within,\npraising the Alone-begotten king and crying, \"It is because of Thee\nthat we ray forth glory, and it is by Thee that we behold the Father of\nthe Universe, AAA, +\u00d4\u00d4\u00d4+ (23), and the Mother of all the good, She who\nis hidden in every space\"--that is to say, the contriving thought\n(Epinoia) of all the Eternities, the conceiving thought of all gods and\nof all lords--\"She is the Gn\u00f4sis of all the Unseen beings, and Thy\nImage is the Mother of all the Boundless Ones, the Power of all the\nInfinites.\"\n\nPraising the Alone-begotten, they cry, \"It is because of Thy Image (24)\nthat we have seen Thee, that we have run to Thee, that we have clung to\nThee, that we have received the Incorruptible Crown which is known\nthrough Her.  Glory be to Thee, O Alone-begotten, for ever and ever.\"\n\nThen together do they all say Amen.\n\nFor [? Jesus, the Fruit of the \u00c6ons] became a Body of Light, He crossed\nthe \u00c6ons of the Indivisible [Body] until He came to the Alone-begotten\nwho is in the Monad and who dwells in Peace and Solitude.  He received\nthe Grace of the Alone-begotten--that is to say, His Christhood or His\nPerfecting.  Also He received the Eternal Crown.  He is the Father of\nall Light-Sparks, the chief of all Immortal bodies, and this is He for\nwhose sake resurrection is given to the body (25).\n\nBut besides the Indivisible Queen and besides her Ennead without\nseal-mark, in which is found all seal-marks, there are three other\nEnneads, of which each emanates nine Enneads.  In the first of these is\nrevealed a Basket round which three Fathers are gathered: an Infinite\nFather, an Ineffable Father, and an Uncontainable Father.  In the\nmiddle of the second Ennead is a Basket, and three Fathers are there:\nan Invisible Father, an Ingenerable Father, and an Unshakable Father.\nIn the third Ennead is also revealed a Basket which encloses three\nPaternities: a Solitary Father, an Unknown Father, and a Triple-Powered\nFather.  It is through these that the Universe has known God.  They ran\ntowards Him and have engendered an innumerable multitude of \u00e6ons, and\nin each Ennead they offered myriads and myriads of praises.\n\nIn each of these Enneads there is a Monad, and in each Monad a Space\ncalled \"Incorruptible\": that is to say, \"Holy ground.\"  There is a\nFount in the ground of each of these Monads, and myriads and myriads of\nPowers who have received on their heads a crown of the Crown of the\nTriple-Power.  In the middle of these Enneads and of these Monads is an\nimmeasurable Deep towards which all the Universe looks, those that are\ninternal as well as those that are external, having above it twelve\nPaternities, each surrounded by thirty Powers.\n\nThe First Paternity is a face of the Infinite One, and thirty infinite\npowers surround him.\n\nThe Second paternity is a face of the Invisible One and thirty\ninvisible powers surround him.\n\nThe Third paternity is a face of the Uncontainable One, and thirty\nuncontainable powers surround him.\n\nThe Fourth paternity is a face of the Invincible One and thirty\ninvincible powers surround him.\n\nThe Fifth Paternity is a face of the All-powerful One and thirty\n1ll-powerful powers surround him.\n\nThe Sixth paternity is a face of the All-Wise One and thirty all-wise\npowers surround him.\n\nThe Seventh paternity is a face of the Unknown One and thirty unknown\npowers surround him.\n\nThe Eighth paternity is a face of the Solitary One and thirty solitary\npowers surround him.\n\nThe Ninth paternity is a face of the Ingenerable One, and thirty\ningenerable powers surround him.\n\nThe Tenth paternity is a face of the Unshakable One and thirty\nunshakable powers surround him.\n\nThe Eleventh Paternity is a face of the Universal Mystery, and thirty\nuniversal mysteries surround him.\n\nThe Twelfth Paternity is a face of the Triple-Powered One, and thirty\ntriple-powers surround him.\n\nAnd in the midst of the Immeasurable Deep there are five Powers which\nare called by these ineffable names:\n\nThe first is called Love, and from her comes all love.\n\nThe second is called Hope, and it is by her that we hope in the\nAlone-begotten, the Son of God.\n\nThe third is called Faith, and it is by her that we believe the\nmysteries of the Ineffable One.\n\nThe fourth is called Gn\u00f4sis, and it is by her that we know the First\nFather, Him because of whom we live that we may know Him.  [Gn\u00f4sis] the\nMystery of Silence, who spake before all things, that which is hidden,\nthe First Monad, for whom the Universe became being.  It is upon the\nhead of this Mystery that the three hundred and sixty-five substances\nform a crown like the hair of human kind, and the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma\nis as a stairway beneath her feet.  This is the Gate of God (26).\n\nThe fifth is called Peace, and it is by her that we give Peace to all,\nto those within and to those without, for it is in her that all things\nhave been created.\n\nThis is that Abyss Immeasurable in which is found three hundred and\nsixty-five Paternities, thanks to whom they have devised the year.\n\nThis is the Abyss which surrounds the Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, where is\nrevealed the Triple-Power with his branches and his trees, and\nMousanios and those which belong to him.  There also is Aphr\u00eadon and\nhis twelve Holy Ones, and a Basket is in the midst of them.  They come\nto carry in it the praises, the hymns, the prayers and supplications of\nthe Mother of the Universe, the Mother of the (manifested?) worlds who\nis called Phanerios (27), and to give them a form, thanks to the twelve\nHoly Ones.  They send them into the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma of S\u00eatheus, by which act\nthey call to mind those of the external world in which there is matter.\n\nThis is the Deep where the Triple-Power rayed out the splendours of His\nglory, after He had been to the Indivisible Mother and had received the\nGrace of the One Beyond Knowledge, by which He had gotten such a\nSonship that the Fullnesses were not able to stand upright before Him\nbecause of the excess of His light and brilliancy thereof.  The whole\nPl\u00ear\u00f4ma was troubled, the Abyss and all it contained was moved, and the\n[\u00e6ons] fled to the world of the Mother [Phanerios], and the Mystery\nordained that the veils of the \u00e6ons should be drawn until the Overseer\nhad established them once more.  And the Overseer established the \u00e6ons\nonce more, as it is written, \"He has established the Earth, and it\nshall not be moved,\" and again, \"The Earth has been dissolved and all\nthat therein is\" (28).\n\nThen the Triple-Power went forth: the Son was concealed in him, and the\ncrown of confirmation was upon his head, making myriads and myriads of\nglories.  They cried, \"Make straight the way of the Lord and receive\nthe grace of God: every \u00e6on which is empty shall be filled with the\ngrace of the Alone-begotten Son.\"\n\nThe Father holy and all-perfect stood above the Deep Immeasurable.  It\nis in Him that all perfection is found, and in His fullness have we\nreceived grace.  Then the world was established; it ceased to shake;\nthe Father fashioned it so that it might nevermore be shaken, and the\n\u00e6on of the Mother remained full of those that were in it until the\nordering came from the Mystery concealed in the First Father, He from\nwhence came the Mystery; when His Son re-established the Universe once\nmore in His Gn\u00f4sis, that which re-enforms the Universe.\n\nThen S\u00eatheus sent the Logos D\u00eamiourgos, having with him a multitude of\nPowers, wearing the crowns on their heads; and their crowns darted\nforth rays.  The brilliancy of their bodies is as the life of the Space\ninto which they are come; the word that comes out of their mouths is\nlife \u00c6onian, and the light that comes from their eyes is a rest for\nthem; the movement of their hands is their flight to the place from\nwhence they have come, and their gazing on their own faces is Gn\u00f4sis of\ntheir interior nature; their going towards them is their return once\nmore within; the stretching forth of their hands establishes them; the\nhearing of their ears is the intuition in their hearts; the union of\ntheir limbs is the regathering of the dispersal of Israel; their\nself-understanding is their contemplation of the Logos; the writing\nupon their fingers is the number which has gone forth, even as it is\nwritten, \"He counteth the number of the Stars and calleth them all by\ntheir names.\"\n\nAnd the whole union was made by the Logos D\u00eamiourgos with those who had\ncome out of the turmoil that had been: altogether they became one and\nthe same body, as it has been written, \"They have all become one and\nthe same body in this One and Only One.\"  Then this Logos D\u00eamiourgos\nbecame a mighty God, Lord, Saviour, Christ, King, the Good, Father,\nMother.  This is He whose work was good: He was glorified and became\nFather to those that believed: He became Law in Aphr\u00eadonia and mighty.\n\nThen went forth Pand\u00ealos [All-manifest]; she had a crown on her head,\nand she placed it upon them who had believed (29).\n\nThe Power of the \u00c6ons [? the Indivisible Queen, the Mother within the\nPl\u00ear\u00f4ma] ordered the Hierarchy of the World of the Virgin Mother\n[Phaneia, the Mother without the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, she who brings into\nmanifestation] according to the Order of the Inner Space.  She placed\nin it the Light-Spark after the pattern of the Monad and placed therein\nthe concealment which surrounds Him.  She ordained the Propat\u00f4r after\nthe Order of the Indivisible Body and the twelve Holy Ones which\nsurround it, having crowns on their heads and seals of glory in their\nright hands, after the type found in the Indivisible Point.  In the\nmidst of these is Love; a face of the Triple-Power is in the Fount, and\nthere is a Basket which twelve Paternities surround, in whom a Sonship\nis concealed.\n\nShe ordained the Autopat\u00f4r according to the order of the Ennead without\nseal-mark and gave him authority over all that is only self-fathered,\nand gave him a crown of all-glory and love, and Peace, Truth, and\nmyriads of powers, so that he might gather together those who had been\ndispersed by the troubling which had taken place when the [Light Spark]\nwent forth with joy.  As for the Prince of the Universe, he who has the\ntriple-power to make alive and to destroy, she ordained the Son\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r after the order of the Triple-Power.  She gave him a\nninefold Ennead and five tenfold Decads, and that he might have power\nto accomplish the warfare imposed upon him, she gave him the\nfirst-fruits of the Sonship concealed in her that he might be able to\nbecome a Triple-Power.  He received the Vow of the Sonship because the\nUniverse (30) had been sold [? into slavery], and took upon him the\nwarfare entrusted to him and made arise all that was pure in matter.  A\nworld made he, an \u00e6on, a town; the world which is called\n\"Incorruptibility\" and \"Jerusalem.\"  It is also called \"The New Earth,\"\nand \"Self-Perfect,\" and \"Without King.\"  This earth is an earth that\nbrings forth gods, a life-giving earth indeed.  This is the earth that\nthe Mother (? Phaneia) asked to have established.  That is why she (?\nthe Mother Above) has placed orders or hierarchy in this earth and has\nplaced in it Providence and Love.  This is the earth of which it has\nbeen written, \"The earth which drank the rain a multitude of times\":\nthat is to say, which has multiplied the light in her multitudes and\nmultitudes of times, since the (light) went forth until its return;\nthat is to say, it is that from which the Man is named \"Sensible.\"  He\nis fashioned, He has been created according to the type of this earth,\nHe who has been saved from His Self dispersion by the Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r\n(31).  Because of that, the Father of all those of the Universe, He who\nhas no [bridal] bed has sent [Him,? the Man] a crown bearing the names\nof all those of the Universe, whether Infinite or Ineffable, or\nUncontainable, or Incorruptible, or Unknown, or Solitary, or\nAll-powerful, or Indivisible.  This is the crown of which it is\nwritten, \"They gave it unto Solomon on the day of his exultation of\nheart.\"\n\nThe First Monad sent Him [the Man] an ineffable vesture which is all\nLight, all Life, all Love, all Hope, all Faith, all Wisdom, all Gn\u00f4sis,\nall Truth, all Peace, all Witness, all Universal Mother, all Universal\nMystery, all Fount, all Universal Perfection, all Invisible, all\nUnknown, all Infinite, all Ineffable, all Abyss, all Uncontainable, all\nFullness, all Silence, all Unshakable, all Unengendered, all Universal\nSolitary, all Monad, all Ennead, all Dodecad, all Ogdoad, all Decad,\nall Hebdomad, all Hexad, all Pentad, all Tetrad, all Triad, all Dyad,\nall Monad.  The whole Universe is in it, and the Universe has found\nitself therein and knows itself therein (29).  It gave light to all in\nits ineffable light, and it was given myriads and myriads of powers, so\nthat the Universe might be established once and for all.  It gathered\ntogether its skirts and gave them the form of a veil which surrounded\nit [the Universe] on every side.  It poured itself over all things,\nraised them up and divided them according to the Hierarchies, according\nto the orders, and according to Providence.  Then that-which-was\nseparated itself from that-which-was-not, and that-which-was-not was\nthe evil manifested in matter; and the Robe of Power severed\nthat-which-was from that-which-was-not.  That-which-was it called\n\u00c6onian, and that-which-was-not it called Hyle (matter).  It separated\nby the Midst that-which-was from that-which-was-not, and placed veils\nbetween these twain.  It placed purifying powers, so that they might\npurge them and make them clean.  It gave in this manner an order to\nthat-which-is and made of the Mother the chief.  It gave it ten \u00e6ons,\nand each \u00e6on has a myriad powers; there is also a Monad and an Ennead\nin each \u00e6on.\n\nThe [Robe of Power] placed in her [? Phaneia] an Universal Motherhood\nand therewith a Power that had hitherto been concealed therein, so that\nnone knew thereof.  [? The Robe] placed a great Basket, above which\nstand three Powers, an Ingenerable One, an Unshakable One, and the\nGreat Pure One.  It gave to [? the world order] the twelve other Powers\nwho have received the crown and who surround it.  It gave it also the\nSeven Stratelatai (32), who have the seal of the All-completing\n[Panteleios], and have on their heads crowns in which there are twelve\nstones of Adamant, which come from Adam, the Man of Light.\n\n[The Robe of Power] established the Propat\u00f4r in all the \u00e6ons of the\nMother of [the Manifestation] of all things, and gave him the full\npower of Paternity, and Powers to obey him as Father and as First\nFather of all that exists.  It placed upon his head a crown of twelve\nkinds; it gave him a Power which is Triple-powered and All-powered; it\ngave him Sonship and myriads and myriads of Glories.  It turned the\nPl\u00ear\u00f4ma towards him and gave him power to make live and to destroy.  It\ngave him a power of the \u00e6on so that he might manifest it, with the\nmyriads and myriads of out-rayed Glories, like the other \u00e6ons that were\nwith him.  The Power which has been given to the Propat\u00f4r is called\nPr\u00f4tophanes, because he is the first to be manifested, and Agenn\u00eatos,\nbecause no one has engendered him.  Also Ineffable and \"Without Name\"\nis he called, and also Autog\u00eanes and Autotheletos, because he has\nmanifested himself by his own will.  Yet again is he named\nAutoloxastos, for he manifested himself with the Glories that were his.\nYet again is he termed Invisible, for he is hidden and none can see him.\n\nNow [the Robe of Power] gave unto the Propat\u00f4r another Power, that\nwhich since the beginning has caused the Light-Spark to appear in this\nSpace, and who is named with names Holy and All-perfecting.  Who is\nPr\u00f4tia, that is to say, the First, and is also called Pantia--she who\nis found in all--and Pangenia--she who has brought forth all in the\nworld--and Loxogenia--she who has brought Glory to birth--and\nLoxophania--Manifester of Glory--and Loxokrateia--she who has dominion\nover Glory--and Arsenogenia--she who brings forth males--and L\u00f4ia--of\nwhich the interpretation is God with us--and Jou\u00eal--of which the\ninterpretation is God for ever--she it is who has ordained that these\nPowers should appear whose name is called Phaneia, of which the\ntranslation is Manifestation.  The angel who has appeared with them is\nhe whom the Glories name Loxogenes and Loxophanes, of which the\ninterpretation is \"He who engenders Glory\" and \"He who manifests\nGlory,\" for he is one of those Glories who stand about that mighty\npower called Loxokrator, because in his manifestation he has had\ndominion over the great Glories.\n\nSuch are the Powers that were given to the Propat\u00f4r when he was placed\nin the \u00e6on of the Mother, and myriads and myriads of Glories, Angels,\nArchangels, and Liturgies were bestowed upon him, so that they might\nserve him, those of matter.  They gave him power over everything.  He\nmade for himself a mighty \u00e6on and placed therein a mighty Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma and a\ngreat temple and all the Powers that he had taken and placed within\nhimself, and he rejoiced with them, bringing forth his creatures again\naccording to the commandment of the Father hidden in the Silence, Who\nhad sent him these riches; and the Crown of Fatherhood was given to him\nbecause he had been made the Father of all those who came after him.\nThen he cried out and said, \"My children, with whom I travail again\nuntil Christ be formed in you\"; and again he cried, \"Yea, I would set\nbeside a holy virgin an only husband, Christ.\"\n\nBut when he had seen the Grace that the Father in secret had given unto\nhim (that is Himself a Propat\u00f4r), he wished to turn the Universe to the\nFather in secret, for it is His will that the Universe should turn to\nHim.  And when the Mother saw all the grandeurs which had been given\nunto her Propat\u00f4r, she rejoiced greatly, she exulted; that is why she\nsaid, \"My heart has rejoiced and my tongue has been in exultation.\"\nThen she cried to the Power Infinite who stands hard by the \u00e6on of the\nFather, that mighty Power of Glory that the Glories call Trigenielos\n(33), that is to say, Three Engendered, and who is named also Trigenes\nand also Harmes.  She prayed also unto Him who is concealed in every\nSpace that He would send him the Mother of Him who has withdrawn\nHimself.  The Father in secret sent him the Mystery who reclothes all\nthe \u00e6ons like the Glories who form the Crown Panteles, that is to say,\nof Perfection, so that he [the Propat\u00f4r] might place the Crown upon the\nhead of the Indivisible [Body] hidden within her, Incorruptible and\nUnengendered.  With [her He sent] the mighty Power which is in her\ncompany, she who is called Arsenogenia, who replenishes all the \u00e6ons of\nGlory.  Thus from him shall the Universe receive the Crown.\n\nThen she established the Autopat\u00f4r Father and \u00c6onian One; and gave unto\nhim the \u00e6on of the Concealed One in which are found all things, such as\nspecies, faces, images, forms, questions, dissemblances, and changes,\nthat which counts and that which is counted, that which thinks and that\nwhich is thought.  She made a vesture thereof over all which is in him,\nso that he might give to him who asked him.  She gave unto him ten\nPowers, and nine Enneads, five \u00c6ons, and she gave unto him Light; and\nthat gave him power over all secret things, so that he might show mercy\nto those who had fought, who had towards the \u00e6on fled from matter,\nleaving it behind them.  They have fled to the \u00e6on of the Autopat\u00f4r;\nthey have made their own the promise which has been promised by Him who\nsaid, \"He who forsakes father, mother, brother, sister, wife, children,\nand riches, and takes up his cross and follows Me, shall receive the\npromises that I have promised unto him, and I will give unto them the\nMystery of the Father in Secret, because they have loved that which was\ntruly theirs and have fled from him who pursues them with injustice.\"\nAnd he [Autopat\u00f4r] gave them Glory, Joy, Exaltation, Jubilation, Peace,\nHope, Faith, Love, and the Truth which changes not.  This is the Ennead\nwith which he rewarded those that fled from matter; they became happy,\nthey became perfect, they knew God and the Truth, they comprehended the\nMystery which works in the Man; for what cause He has revealed Himself,\nthat they might see Him, for He is in truth Invisible; and for their\nsakes He has revealed in words His Logos, so that they might know Him\nand become gods and perfect.\n\nWhen the Mother established the Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r as her son, she gave unto\nhim the Power of the Sonship; she gave unto him armies of Angels and\nArchangels; she gave unto him twelve Powers who served him; she gave\nunto him a robe to consummate all things in him, for in it is revealed\nevery kind of body: the body of fire, the body of water, the body of\nair [? spirit], the body of earth, the body of wind, the body angelic,\nthe body archangelic, the body of Powers, the body of Dominions, the\nbody of Gods, the body of Lords--in a word, every kind of body, so that\nnothing might hinder him from mounting into the heights or descending\ninto the depths of Noun.  This is the Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r to whom those of\nthe internal and external Spaces have promised all things that please\nhim, and it is he who separates all matter; for he brooded over it like\na bird who stretches her wings over her eggs.  Even thus did the\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r unto matter, and made myriads and myriads of species and\nkinds come forth.  When Matter was warmed she produced the multitudes\nof Powers that were in her, and he separated them into species and\nkinds.  He gave them a law to love one another, to honour God and to\npraise Him, and to seek for Him, who He is and what He is, and to\nwonder at the place from whence they had come forth, so narrow and so\nsad, and not to return thither again, but to follow him who had given\nthem a law and made them come out of the darkness; of Matter, their\nMother.  He had said to them, \"Let there be light.\"  For they did not\nknow if there were such a thing as light or not.  Then he gave them the\ncommand not to hurt one another, and left them to go to the Space of\nthe Mother of the Universe beside the Propat\u00f4r and the Autopat\u00f4r, so\nthat together they might draw up those who had come forth from matter.\n\nThen the Mother of the Universe (34), the Propat\u00f4r, the Autopat\u00f4r, the\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r, and the Powers of the \u00e6on of the Mother sang a great\nhymn to the One and Only God, praising Him and saying:\n\n\"Thou alone art Boundless, Thou only art the Deep, Thou only art the\nIncomprehensible One, for Thou art He whom all beings seek and [without\nThy grace] find Thee not, for none can know Thee against Thy will, and\nnone can praise Thee against Thy will.  For Thy will only is a Space\nfor Thee, for nothing can contain Thee who art the Space for all.  Thee\nI pray that Thou mayest give an holy ordering to those of the World,\nthat Thou mayest dispose my offspring according to Thy will.  Grieve\nnot my offspring, for never has anything been grieved by Thee; yet no\none knows Thy Counsel.  Of Thee all beings of the Inner and the Outer\nWorlds have need, Thou only Incomprehensible, Thou only beyond All\nvision, beyond All mind.  Thou only hast given character to all\ncreatures and hast manifested them in Thyself.  Of that which is not\nyet manifested art Thou the Creator, and Thou alone dost know these\nthings, for we know them not [of ourselves].  Thou alone revealest them\nunto us [through Symbols and Images], so that we may supplicate Thee on\ntheir behalf, so that Thou mayest make them manifest, and we may know\nthem [as they are in themselves apart from all Symbols] by Thy Grace\nalone.  Thou alone hast raised up the Secret Worlds to Thyself, so that\nthey might know Thee, for Thou hast given unto them the boon of knowing\nThee, for Thou hast given birth unto them from Thy Incorporeal Body and\nhast taught them that from Thy Self-productive Mind Thou hast the Man\nbrought forth in Contemplation and in a perfect Concept, yea, even the\nMan brought forth by Mind to whom Contemplation has given a form.  Thou\nit is who hast bestowed all good things upon the Man, and He weareth\nthem like vestures.  He putteth them on like garments and wrappeth\nHimself with Creation as with a robe (35).  This Man is He whom all the\nUniverse yearneth to know, for Thou alone it is who hast ordained unto\nthe Man to manifest Himself, so that in Him Thou mightest be known and\nthat all might learn that it is Thou who hast brought Him forth and\nthat Thou art manifested according to Thy Will.\n\n\"Thee do I invoke, and I pray Thee, O Father of all Fatherhood, Lord of\nall Lords, to give an holy ordering unto my kinds and to my offspring,\nthat I may rejoice in Thy Name and in Thy goodness, O Thou Sole King, O\nThou who changest not.  Bestow upon me from Thy goodness, and I will\nmake known unto my children that Thou art their Saviour\" (36).\n\nWhen the Mother had finished praying to the Boundless One Beyond\nKnowledge, who fills the whole Universe and gives life unto all, He\nheard her and those with her, for all of them were His own, and He sent\nunto her a Power who came forth from the Man whom they desired to\nbehold.\n\nFrom Being Unbounded came forth the Infinite Spark of Light, at whom\nall the \u00e6ons wondered, asking themselves where He had been concealed\nbefore manifesting Himself from the Infinite Father, He from whom the\nUniverse was manifested and who was latent therein.  The Powers of the\nSecret Worlds followed Him when they were manifested and came into the\nTemple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  He hid Himself amidst the Powers who came forth\nfrom the Father in Secret (37).  He made a world and bore it into the\nTemple.  Then the Powers of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma beheld Him and loved Him and\npraised Him in hymns ineffable, unspeakable to tongues of mortal flesh,\nand good to dream of in the heart of man.  He received their hymn and\nmade a veil surrounding their world like a wall; then went He to the\nborders of the Universal Mother [without] and stood above the Universal\n\u00c6on (38).  The Universe was moved at the presence of the Lord of the\nwhole Earth; the \u00c6on was troubled and in suspense because it had seen\nthat which it knew not.  The King of Glory was seated, He divided\nmatter into two halves and into two parts (39).  He fixed the borders\nof each part and taught them that they came from One Father and from\nOne Mother.  To those who ran unto Him and adored Him He gave the place\nat the right hand, and gave them Life for ever and ever and\nImmortality.  He named the place on the right \"The Land of Life,\" and\nthe place on the left \"The Land of Death\"; He named the Earth on the\nright \"The Earth of Light,\" and the Earth on the left \"The Earth of\nDarkness\"; He named the Earth on the right \"The Earth of Repose,\" and\nthe Earth on the left \"The Earth of Sorrow.\"  He placed boundaries\nbetween them and veils, so that they might not see each other; He gave\nmany Glories to those who had adored Him and gave them dominion over\nthose who had resisted and opposed Him.  He extended the World of the\nRight into many places and placed them [who followed Him] in each\nhierarchy, in each \u00e6on, in each world, in each heaven, in each\nfirmament, in many heavens, in each region, in each space, in each\nreceptacle.  He gave them [who had followed Him] laws and delivered\nunto them commandments, saying, \"Keep My sayings and I will give unto\nyou eternal life; I will send Powers unto you, yea, I will strengthen\nyou with mighty spirits, and will give unto you the dominion of your\ndesire: no one shall hinder your will, and you shall bring forth \u00e6ons,\nworlds, and heavens.  When the intellectual spirits come to dwell in\nyou then shall ye become gods, then shall ye know that ye came forth\nfrom God, and then shall ye behold Him within yourselves, in your\neternities shall He dwell.\"\n\nThese words spake the Lord of the Universe unto them; then He withdrew\nHimself from them and hid Himself from them.  And those who had been\nthe births of matter rejoiced that their thought had been accomplished;\nthey rejoiced because they had come forth from the narrow and the sad.\nThey prayed unto the Hidden Mystery, saying, \"Give us power to create\n\u00e6ons and worlds according to the word which Thou hast sworn unto Thy\nservants, for Thou alone art He who changest not, Thou alone art the\nInfinite and Boundless One, Thou only art unengendered, born of\nThyself, Self-Father, Thou only art Unmoved and Unknowable, Thou only\nSilence art and Love and Fount of the Universe, Thou only art\nimmaterial and hast no stain, ineffable in Thy generation and\ninconceivable in Thy manifestation.  Hear us, then, O Father\nIncorruptible, Father Immortal, God of Hidden Beings, sole Light and\nLife, Alone beyond Vision, only Unspeakable, only Unstainable, only\n[Foundation] stone of Adamant (40), sole Primal Being, for before Thee\nnothing was.  Hearken unto this prayer which we make unto Him who is\nconcealed in every place.  Hear us, send unto us incorporeal spirits\nthat they may dwell with us and teach us that which Thou hast promised\nunto us; that they may dwell in us and that we may become bodies for\nthem, for it is Thy will that it should thus be.  So may it be.  Give\nlaw unto our work and strengthen it according to Thy will and according\nto the order of the hidden \u00e6ons; dispose us according to Thy will, for\nwe are Thine\" (41).\n\nAnd He heard them and sent unto them discerning Powers which knew the\norder of those who are hidden.  He established the Hierarchy like the\nHierarchies above and according to the concealed order.  They began\nfrom the base to the summit, so that the building might unite them to\ntheir companions.  He created the aerial earth as a place of habitation\nfor those who had come forth, so that they might dwell therein until\nthe strengthening of those who are below them; then created He the true\nhabitation in the interior of that, the place of repentance in the\ninterior of that, the antitype of Aerodios; then the place of\nrepentance in the interior of that, the antitype of Autog\u00eanes: in this\nplace they baptise themselves in the name of Autog\u00eanes, who is God over\nthem, and there are Powers placed in this place over the Fount of the\nWaters of Life which they make go forth.  These are the names of the\nPowers who are over the Waters of Life: Michar and Micheu; and they\nbaptise in the name of Barpharanges.  In the interior of these Spaces\nare the \u00e6ons of Sophia; in the interior of these Spaces is the True\nTruth, and Pistis Sophia is found there and also the pre-existent Jesus\nthe Living, Aerodios and his twelve \u00e6ons.  There are placed in this\nspace Sella\u00f4, Eleinos, Zogeneth\u00eales, Selmelche, and the Autog\u00eanes of\nthe \u00e6ons.  There are placed in him four lights: \u00c8l\u00ealth\u00eath, Daueithe,\n\u00d4roia\u00eal ... (42).  He saith (43):\n\nO Alone-begotten of Light, I praise Thee.\n\nO Light unengendered, I praise Thee.\n\nO Light self-begotten, I praise Thee.\n\nO Forefather of Light, more excellent than every Forefather, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Light Invisible, who art before all those beyond vision, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Thought of Light surpassing all Thought, I praise Thee.\n\nO God of Light above all gods, I praise thee.\n\nO Gn\u00f4sis of Light passing all knowledge, I praise Thee.\n\nO Unknowable One of Light, who art beyond all that is unknown, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Hermit of the Light, who art above all solitaries, I praise Thee.\n\nO All-mighty of the Light, more excellent than the all-powered ones, I\npraise Thee.\n\nO Thou Thrice-mighty of the Light, greater than them of Triple-might, I\npraise Thee.\n\nO Light that none can separate, for Thou dividest all light, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Thou Pure Light, surpassing all purity, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou who hast begotten [Thyself] in the absence of all generation,\nWhom none has engendered, I praise Thee.\n\nO Fount of the Universality of \u00c6ons, I praise Thee.\n\nO True Self-born of Light, who art before all those self-born, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Thou True Unmoved One of Light, who by Thy Will movest all things, I\npraise Thee.\n\nO Silence of all things, Silence of Light, I praise Thee.\n\nO Saviour of all things, Saviour of Light, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou Unconquerable One of Light, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou Sole Space of all the places of the Universe, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou Only Universal Mystery, I praise thee.\n\nO Thou Only All-perfect Light, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou Only Wise One and Sole Wisdom, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou Only Intangible, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou True Goodness, who hast made appear all good things, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Thou True Light, who hast made all lights to shine, I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou who sustainest all light and givest life to every soul, I praise\nThee.\n\nO Thou Repose of them [? who seek repose], I praise Thee.\n\nO Thou [Father] of all Paternity from the beginning unto this day, I\npraise Thee.\n\nThey [? Thy children] search for Thee because Thou art their [Father].\nHear the prayer of [Thy children], for [Thou art He who is hidden] in\nevery place, He who is the [Desire] of all hearts.\n\n\n\n[1] The title and the opening part of the work are lost.\n\n\n\n\nNOTES\n\n(1) The centre of the Universe, which is everywhere and nowhere; the\nideal unity in diversity, from which all things flow out and into which\nall things return.  Just as Jerusalem was held to be the centre of the\nearth, so was this \"City\" held to be the hidden centre of the Universe;\nhence it is often named \"Jerusalem Above, who is the Mother of us all.\"\nIt is the principle at once of universality and individuality, the real\n\"ground\" or centre of the soul.  It is called the \"House of the Father\"\nbecause it is the abiding place of the Presence; the \"Robe of the Son\"\nbecause it is His Body of Manifestation (_cp._ 2 Clem. xiv.); the\n\"Power of the Mother\" because it is the \"Energy\" by which man is reborn\ninto Divine consciousness; and the \"Image or Archetype of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma\"\n(the World of Eternal Ideas in their \"Fullness\"), because it is the\nWisdom which is the basis of all consciousness.\n\n(2) This term rather suggests the use of a vibratory formula to induce\ncertain interior states as a practice of the School to which the Greek\nMS. belonged.  Perhaps this may have been \u00cfA\u00d4, the meaning of which is\ngiven elsewhere as \"I, because the All (or Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma) hath gone forth.\nA, because it will turn itself back again.  \u00d4, because the consummation\nof all consummations will take place.\"  This may be taken to mean\nexoterically, \"\u00cf, the Incarnation of Jesus, Who is the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma.  A, the\nCrucifixion.  \u00d4, the Ascension.\"  Taken esoterically, it may mean, \"\u00cf,\nthe Soul, has come forth from God into generation.  A, it is started or\n\"Initiated\" on its return journey through the Life of the Cross.  \u00d4,\nthere is union with God in the Eternity of Eternities as the\nconsummation of all things\" (_cp._ note 18).  The work we are studying\nmight almost be considered an exposition of this formula, though I do\nnot suggest that it literally is so.  We begin by reading it from right\nto left, beginning with the God \"beyond Name,\" that is He whose being\ncannot be expressed by any name, \u00d4.  We pass to the Logos, the Divine\nMind, He who can be named, and His Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, A, from which is \"started\"\nthe Visible World by the going forth of the \"Light-Spark\" or \"Man,\" \u00cf.\nAfter this we read from left to right, but this is the expounding of\nthe mystical life, the \"return,\" under a veil of symbolism.  \u00cfA\u00d4 is the\ngreat Name of God in three vowels, derived historically, no doubt, from\nthe Great Name in Judaism, and is the counterpart of the Indian AUM.\nProbably, like this latter, it was pronounced in three ways: (1)\naudibly; (2) inaudibly to others, but with the lips; (3) mentally.  It\nwas a formula of a sacramental kind by which the life of the disciple\nwas mystically identified with the Life of the Master, so that the\nknowledge of the real nature of the soul is given or restored by God.\nDuring its use the mind was, of course, concentrated on its inner\nmeanings.  Various aspects of mystical truth could be expressed by its\npermutations; \u00cfA\u00d4, \u00d4A\u00cf, A\u00d4\u00cf, etc.\n\n(3) _Cp._ Odes of Solomon, 27: \"I stretched out my hands and worshipped\nthe Lord, for the extension of my hands is His sign, and my expansion\nis the Upright Tree [or Pillar].\"\n\nThe Cross of Calvary was taken, by the Gn\u00f4stics, to be the outward and\nvisible sign of a concealed or Cosmic Cross, another aspect of the\n\"City\" or Monad, upon which the Logos or Light-Spark, as the \"Son of\nMan,\" or the \"Man,\" was crucified perpetually in an ineffable manner,\nthus communicating His Life and Light to the Universe.  The substance\nor \"strain\" of this Cross is symbolised here by the Ennead or Ninefold\nBeing, the members of which, Knowledge, Life, Hope, etc., are each in\nthemselves Ideal Beings, Eternities, or Gods.  Yet these Nine, a number\ntypical of Initiation, are also one, as the Master and the Cross are\nalso one.  The Mystery is that of an Unbloody Sacrifice once and\nperpetually offered and also of Divine Espousal.  [See further the\n\"Hymn of Jesus\" and the \"Gn\u00f4stic Crucifixion\" texts and commentaries by\nG. R. S. Mead, who renders the passage in the text by \"The Source of\nthe Cross is the Man whom no man can comprehend.\"]\n\n(4) \"Twelve\" seems to symbolise the Powers creative of all kinds of\nlife in their totality, the creative imagination or raying forth power.\n\n(5) \"Truth\" is another name for the Bride of the Logos, His \"Great\nSurround\" or Body.  It is the Divine Concept or Conceiving Thought of\nthe Cosmos and its processes, and hence it is also the seal of\nperfection or Body of Glory, the Life with which the Risen and Ascended\nMaster is clad.  While conferring character on all things, it is\nentirely transcendent, modeless, and \"un-walled.\"  Through it God is\nimmanent in the Universe, hence it is also called \"Mother.\"  This is\nwhat the symbolism seems to imply.\n\n(6) This implies the doctrine of the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, of\nthe Universe and of the individual soul as a perfect compendium\nthereof.  All the great cosmic processes are to be found within the\nsoul.\n\n(7) A \"name\" was held to be that which manifests the innermost essence\nof a thing.  Hence it symbolised the spiritual body or ideal vehicle of\nmanifestation, the life clothing.  The bestowal of a new name is\ntherefore the sacramental sign of the gift of a new body or mode of\nlife.  The real and ineffable Name of God is the Concept or Conceiving\nThought referred to in note 5.  But this is the Name \"Mother\" or\n\"Bride\" of the Logos, Providence.  To \"name\" was a sacramental way of\ninvoking a presence or \"spiritual vehicle.\"\n\n(8) _Cp._ Codex Akhmim: \"Of Him it is said, He thinketh His Image alone\nand beholdeth it in the Water of Pure Light which surroundeth Him.  And\nHis Thought energised and revealed herself, and stood before Him in the\nLight-Spark--which is the Power which existed before the All--which is\nthe perfect Forethought of the All--the Barb\u00eal\u00f4, the \u00c6on perfect in\nglory--glorifying Him, because she hath manifested herself in Him and\nthinketh Him (_i.e._ gives Him birth).  She is the first Thought, His\nImage.\"  Barb\u00eal\u00f4 seems to mean \"In the Four is God\": in other words, it\nis the personified Tetragrammaton or Great Name commonly rendered by\nJehovah.\n\n(9) Kanoun.  This is a flat, broad basket, originally made of rush or\ncane, but often manufactured in precious metals in later times.  It was\nused in the sacrificial rites of the gods and was hence classed among\nsacred things (_v._ \"Basket\" in Hastings' _Ency. of Rel. and Ethics_).\nWhat it signifies exactly I am unable to say.  Possibly the rites of\nthe school, if we only knew them, would throw some light upon the\nquestion.  The offerings of bread and wine at the Eucharist may have\nbeen made in the Kanoun.  Sometimes in the MS. it seems to be connected\nwith prayer.\n\n(10) The Temple of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata or Fullnesses seems to be pictured as\nbeing in the manner of that in Jerusalem.  The \u00c6ons of the Inner Space\ncorrespond to the Holy of Holies, the \u00c6ons of the Middle Space to the\nHoly Place, and the \u00c6ons of the Outer Space to the Court.  The various\n\u00c6ons and their powers now described seem to be those of the Inner\nSpace.  \"\u00c6on\" and \"Space\" are practically equivalent terms, only \u00c6on is\non the Mind or Spiritual side of things, Space or Extension (Topos) is\non the Life or Body side of things.  \"Space\" is purely the space of\nmind.  It is a Spiritual Body with many members, each of which is a\ngod, having his own individual consciousness and being, and yet\npartaking perfectly and wholly of a common consciousness or life.  Each\n\u00c6on is a mighty Hierarchy in himself, and his \"topos\" is a Church or\nHoly Assembly.  The ideal union of these Spaces is in the Monad or\nIndivisible Point, which is therefore the Church of Churches, the Body\nof the Man whom no man can comprehend.\n\n(11) S\u00eatheus and the twelve three-faced Paternities seem to be the\nparadigms, or heavenly patterns, of the Sun, the signs of the Zodiac,\nand the thirty-six Decans.  He is the Invisible Sun of Righteousness\nbehind the visible flame which measures time.  In other words, he is\nthe symbol of the \u00c6on of \u00c6ons, the \u00c6on _par excellence_.  What time is\nto the ordinary mundane mind that S\u00eatheus is to the Alone-begotten and\nthe Monad, whose ineffable union he encompasses.  For he is the\nmanifested Sun of Eternity, (sun symbol). The Monad is the Indivisible\nPoint within the circle or sphere, and the Light-Spark or Logos is\nwithin the Point, while S\u00eatheus himself is, strictly speaking, the\ncircle or sphere, the well-known symbol of Eternity.  All the \u00e6ons are\nfound in the \"topos\" of S\u00eatheus, as their divinity is not innate, but\ncomes from conscious participation, hence the name \u00e6on.  I suggest the\nname \"S\u00eatheus\" is formed from that of the god Seth, who was a solar\ndeity in some Egyptian traditions.  No doubt the differentiation of the\nname is intentional.\n\nThe twelve Paternities about the head are referable to the rays, to the\ncreative powers, the \"Divine Imaginings\" of the Mystic Sun in their\ntotality.\n\n(12) Schmidt thinks that the name \"Nicotheos\"--\"the Victor God\"--is a\ntitle of Christ, and that a quotation is given from some lost\nApocalypse, called, perhaps, \"The Apocalypse of Nicotheos.\"  The whole\npassage seems to be a definite appeal to the experiences of attained\nmystics concerning the Dark Ray.  The \"Perfect\" was a technical name,\napplied to those whose initiation or start had been consummated or\nperfected.  Having been regenerated, they were \"gods\" or \"\u00e6ons,\"\nconscious of their kinship with the Pl\u00ear\u00f4mata.  Each was now a\nhierarchy in himself, a race, as it were.  The passage is probably by a\nlater hand.\n\n(13) _Cp._ Pseudo Dionysius Myst. Theol.:\n\n\"The super-unknown, the super-luminous and loftiest height wherein the\nsimple and absolute and unchangeable mysteries are cloaked in the\nsuper-lucent darkness of hidden mystic silence, which super-shines most\nsuper-brightly in the blackest night, and in the altogether intangible\nand unseen, superfills the eyeless understanding with super-beautiful\nbrightnesses.  And thou, dear Timothy, in thy intent and practice of\nthe mystical contemplations, leave behind both thy senses and thy\nintellectual operations, and all things known by sense and intellect,\nand set thyself, as far as may be, to unite thyself in unknowing with\nHim who is above all being and knowledge; for by being purely free and\nabsolute, out of self and all things, thou shalt be led up to the _Ray\nof the Divine Darkness_, stripped and loosed of all.\"\n\nThe above version is by Dom John Chapman, O.S.B., who says that this\npassage was \"cited throughout the Middle Ages as the _locus classicus_\nfor method of contemplation.\"  This is, except for our text, the\nearliest mention of the \"Dark Ray\" in literature.  Evidently Pseudo\nDionysius did not invent the term himself, but followed a much older\nChristian tradition.  This fact is important for the history of\nChristian mysticism.\n\n(14) This seems to imply a doctrine of pre-existence.  Perhaps the\npassage is related to John 17:16: \"They are not of the world, even as I\nam not of the world....  As Thou didst send Me into the world, even so\nsent I them into the world.\"\n\n(15) _Cp._ Psalm 68:17 (R.V.): \"The chariots of God are twenty\nthousand, even thousands upon thousands.  The Lord is among them, as in\nSinai, in the sanctuary.\"\n\n(16) Further descriptions of this, \"the oldest of the \u00c6ons,\" are given\nlater on.  From these it will be gathered that the crown is the Crown\nof Life, and that the twelve gates are also twelve deeps or firmaments,\nover each of which a Paternity presides.  She is called the Indivisible\nOne, either \"Point,\" \"Atom,\" or perhaps even \"Body\" or \"Raiment.\"  As\nshe is both the Spouse and Mother of the Light-Spark within the \u00c6on, I\nhave generally called her the Indivisible Queen.\n\n(17) Mr Mead suggests that Ph\u00f4silampes may be a mystery name of\nBasilides.  Has a commentary on the Gospel of St John been used here,\nor a commentary on the prologue by Basilides [containing perhaps the\nteachings of the alleged instructor of Basilides, Glaucias, whose name,\nrather suggesting the \"shining one,\" may equal \"Ph\u00f4silampes\"], which\ninterpreted \"In the beginning\" as meaning \"In the First Concept or in\nthe Monad was the Word\"?\n\n(18) This repetition of the Seven Vowels gives the following meanings\nto them:--AAA = Living of Living Ones, HHH = Holy of Holy Ones, EEE =\nBeing of Beings, III = Father of Fatherhoods, OOO = God of Gods,\nYYY=Lord of Lords, +\u00d4\u00d4\u00d4+ = Space of Spaces or \u00c6on of \u00c6ons.  The High\nand Holy One, together with His Bride and Mother, the \"Universal Church\nor First Concept,\" are one in and with the Eternity that they inhabit.\nHence \"Thou art the House and the Dweller in the House.\"  Time (\u00c6on)\nand Space (Topos) are here one, or different aspects of the same mode\nof being.\n\n(19) _Cp._ \"The Mind unto Hermes,\" 16: \"The Cosmos is all-formed\n[Pantomorphos]--not having forms external to itself, but changing them,\nitself within itself\"; also the \"Perfect Sermon,\" xix. 3: \"The\nthirty-six, who have the name of Horoscopes, are in the self-same space\nas the fixed stars; of these the essence chief or Prince is he whom\nthey call Pantomorph and Omniform, who fashioneth the various forms for\nvarious species.\"  The Pantomorphic Body is the Augoeid\u00eas or\nAstroeid\u00eas, the ray-like or star-like glory (not to be confused with\nthe \"astral body\" of modern theosophy).  _Cp._ Origen, Ep. 38 ad\nPammach: \"Another body, a spiritual and aetherial one, is promised us:\na body that is not subject to physical touch, nor seen by physical\neyes, nor burdened with weight, and which shall be metamorphosed\naccording to the variety of regions in which it shall be....  In that\nspiritual body the whole of us will see, the whole hear, the whole\nserve as hands, the whole as feet.\"  The Star-body is the body of\nResurrection and Ascension.  _Cp._ Mark 16:12: \"He was manifested in\n_another form_ unto two of them.\"  Also it was the body of \"the\nuniversal\" descent, that which transmitted the \u00c6ons from the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma or\nIdeal World to the Sensible World, hence it was considered to be\n\"scattered\" or in a state of latency, or of mystical death in normal\nman.  To awaken it, to gather it together, or to \"raise it from the\ndead,\" was one of the first objects of the mystics, who followed the\nway of the Gn\u00f4sis.  Its partial resurgence was the first great step in\nthe processes of the Apotheosis.  It was the possession of this body,\nin some degree, which distinguished a man as \"spiritual\" from the\npsychic and \"hylic\" men.  The Astroeid\u00eas included the \"natural\" body in\nits consummation, under a great transmutation, for it was the \"Wisdom\"\nat the basis of material nature.\n\nI have transferred the account of the \"City of the Man\" from where it\nstands, at the end of the MS., to this place, as it seems more\nintelligible here, and the exact order has been obscured by the\nconfusion of the leaves.\n\n(20) _Cp._ \"Poemandres,\" 15: \"He [the Man], beholding the form like to\nhimself existing in her, in her water, loved it and willed to live in\nit: and with the will came act, and so he vivified the form devoid of\nreason.  And Nature took the object of her love and wound herself\ncompletely round him, and they were intermingled, for they were\nlovers....  Thus, though above the Harmony (or Fate sphere), within the\nHarmony he [The Man] hath become a slave, ... and though he is\nsleepless from a sleepless Sire, yet is he overcome by sleep.\"\n\nThis is the Mystery of the concealment of God in Nature, a mystery that\nwas sometimes presented under the symbol of a self-scattering,\nsometimes under the symbol of a magical sleep, or mystic death.\n\n(21) \"The Earth that brought forth the God\" is the \"ground of the\nindividual soul,\" and is also the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Universe,\nthe Hidden Sanctuary where the \"Man\" is raised from mystical death or\nis reborn.  No doubt the symbolism is drawn from Egyptian sources.\n\n(22) This passage might be paraphrased, \"Those who have received Life\nand Light in the Concealed Sanctuary of the Soul know, through this\nCrown of Perfection, that the Inheritors of the Kingdom of Light are\nindeed reborn from the Indivisible Body, who is the Mother of us all.\n\n(23) AAA +\u00d4\u00d4\u00d4+ = The Living Space of Spaces, \u00c6on of \u00c6ons.  See note 18\nand _cp._ Rev. 1:8, 17-18: \"I am Alpha and Omega ... the First and the\nLast, and the Living One; and I was dead, and, behold, I am alive unto\nthe \u00e6on of \u00e6ons.\"\n\n(24) The Body of Christ, which in its transcendental aspect is also His\nBride and Mother.  _Cp._ 2 Clem. xiv.: \"I do not suppose that you know\nnot that the living Church is the body of Christ; for the scripture\nsaith, 'God made Man, male and female; the male is Christ, the female\nthe Church; and the books and the Apostles belong not to the Church\nthat now is, but to the Church which is from above.  For it is\nspiritual, as is our Jesus, but is manifested in these last days to\nsave us.  But the Church, being spiritual, is manifested in the flesh\nof Christ....  Great is the Life and Immortality which this flesh can\npartake of--that is, of the Holy Spirit which is joined to it--nor can\nany declare or utter what the Lord has prepared for His chosen.'\"\n\n(25) This extremely interesting and important passage is also one of\ngreat difficulty, for it is full of technical terms and allusions which\nwould need a small treatise to elucidate properly.  For example, it\nseems to imply the doctrine of two Logoi that Clement of Alexandria was\naccused of teaching, and which is found in certain Hellenistic\nwritings.  The \"Body of Light\" is the Astroeid\u00eas in which the \"Adept\"\ncan cross the \"Fate-Sphere,\" the \"Midst,\" the regions of consciousness\nwhere mechanical cause and effect prevail and contact the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma, or\nUniverse of Divine Freedom and Fullness.  \"Charis\" or \"Grace\" is the\nname of the Bride or Body of the Logos, and the use of it here\nsymbolises a \"raiment\" or \"Body\" still more exalted than the\nAstroeid\u00eas.  It is the Body beyond the Stars, the Monadic Robe or \"Robe\nof Glory,\" into which the \"Star-like Body\" was transformed at the\nHoros, Limit or Boundary of the Worlds of Difference and of Sameness.\nWhat kind of Peace was that in which the Alone-begotten dwelt in the\nMonad?  A Peace most truly given to those within and those without, for\nin it all things were created.  To realise what is meant we must\nremember that \"Charis\" and \"Resurrection\" were names of \"Staurus,\" the\nPillar that made with Horos the Great Cross referred to more than once.\n\"Peace,\" then, was the state of the Logos in Mystic crucifixion, the\nPeace of God which established, reconciled, justified all things.\nHence it can be inferred what transformation the Star Body had to\nundergo to become the Robe of Glory.  The Cross and the Master were\none.  The Cross of Calvary was to the Gn\u00f4stic Teacher the outer and\nefficacious sign of this Mystery or Sacrament.  So also the Pentecostal\noutpouring recorded in Acts was the outward sign, or sacramental token,\nof the assumption by the Master of the Robe of Glory, the vesture of\nthe Monad or Transcendental and Universal Church, which could not be\nassumed here.  From thenceforth the band of disciples became a Church,\nthe Mystic Body of Christ, the outward sign of concealed mysteries; and\nit will be seen in what manner Jesus was the Father of all Light-Sparks\nand gave resurrection to the body.  Such was the teaching of the\nGn\u00f4sis.  To make the matter clear to readers interested in mysticism,\nbut unfamiliar with Hellenistic technical terms, it may be said that\nthe \"Bodies\" so often referred to may be taken as standing for what may\nbe called the Life side of various stages of mystical consciousness, as\n\"Light\" stands for the Mind side; but Life and Light are one.\n\n(26) \"The Gate of God.\"  _Cp._ the Naasene Document in Hippolytus:\n\"This Mystery is the Gate of Heaven, and this is the House of God,\nwhere the Good God dwells alone; into which no impure man shall come,\nno psychic, nor fleshly man, ... but it is kept under watch for the\nSpiritual alone--where, when they come, they must cast away their\ngarments, and all become bridegrooms, obtaining their true manhood\nthrough the Virginal Spirit.  For this is the Virgin big with child,\nconceiving and bearing a Son--not psychic, not fleshly, but a blessed\n\u00c6on of \u00c6ons.\"\n\n\"Gn\u00f4sis,\" then, was the Mystery of Regeneration or Rebirth from above.\nIt will be observed that the text shows no hostility to \"Faith.\"  This\nis an indication of early date.  \"Mystery\" is often, though not always,\nthe equivalent to \"Sacrament.\"\n\n(27) There is then another \"Universal Mother,\" Phanerios or Phaneia\n(\"Wisdom without the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma\").  In the last resort the two Mothers are\none.  Phaneia is the Mother of the manifested world in which there is\nmatter, but she does not seem to be in exile, as in the Sophia Myth.\nLike Isis in the Osiris legend, she seems to have gone forth to gather\ntogether the self-scattered limbs of the Man and to redeem Him from\ncaptivity through the efforts of the great hierarchs that are given to\nher.\n\n(28) The pre-existence of the soul is taught, also the loss of the\nmemory of its true nature owing to its fall into \"Matter\" [Hyle].  But\nthis fall is not regarded as either a sin or a mistake, but as a\nneedful step in the mystery of Rebirth or \"Re-ordering.\"  The Overseer\nis the \"Mind of all Masterhood,\" the Logos, the Second Father of all.\n\nIt is tempting to connect the Triple-Power with the Triple-Bodied Man\nof the Naasene Document and see in him the symbol of a simple Universal\nConsciousness \"polarised\" into the three states of Spiritual, Psychic,\nand Material.\n\n(29) This Vision of the Advent of the Creative Word seems to be in part\na summary and anticipation of things described otherwise later in the\nMS.  After it the writer (or writers) goes back and describes the\n\"Re-ordering\" from the time that \"the veils of the \u00e6ons were drawn\"\nfrom various points of view.  Various Cosmic processes are delineated\nsymbolically, and their simultaneous working is not excluded.\n\n(30) The Universal Man had fallen into bondage in the Fate-Sphere.\n\n(31) I think that what we are to understand is, that the Man is raised\nfrom His state of Mystical Death or Self-dispersion by the\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r (Son, First Parent), crowned with the Lights of Wisdom by\nthe Hidden Father \"Who has no consort,\" and robed with cosmic life by\nthe Mother.  Compare what has already been said about the Robe of Glory\nand the outward signs of its descent at Pentecost.  The work of the\nMantle would seem to symbolise the re-ordering work of the Church, the\n\"New Creation,\" the new impulse on its mystical side.  Is\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r, then, a cryptic title of Christ?  In a sense I think it\nis, but there are other issues which are better discussed at a later\npoint.\n\nThe Title \"Without King\" recalls the Naasene Document and its \"One is\nthe Race without a King which is born Above.\"\n\n(32) The Seven Stratelatai, leaders or generals, are perhaps the seven\nPlanets.\n\n(33) _Cp._ the Akhmim Codex: \"She (Barb\u00eal\u00f4) is the First Thought, his\nImage, she becometh the First Man; that is the Virginal Spirit, she of\nthe triple Manhood, the triple-powered one, the triple-named,\ntriple-born, the \u00e6on which ages not, the Man-woman.\"\n\n34.  Who are the Mother and the three great hierarchs?  It is tempting\nto connect the three with the three traditional paths of Purgation,\nIllumination and Union, Water, Fire and Spirit.  The Propat\u00f4r, who\ndesires to turn the World to God, and who is, through the descent of a\nparticular power, the Father-Mother of the Spiritual Life to come, may\nsymbolise the process of Purgation and the Baptism of Water; the\nAutopat\u00f4r, who utters the promises of Christ and who has the power of\nan Ennead of initiation, may typify the Illuminative Life and the\nBaptism of Fire; while the Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r, robed in cosmic\nconsciousness, so that he can walk even the waters of the Primal Deep\n(Noun), who draws forth finally from the material life, may represent\nthe inception of the Life of Union and the Baptism of the Spirit.  All\nthis may be true, but, if I mistake not, there is more behind the veil\nof symbolism, and it is continual allusions to this _more_, plain\nenough to the person for whom it was intended, that renders the MS. so\npeculiarly difficult.  Who is Phaneia, the Mother without the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma,\nwho owes her position to the descent of the Royal Robe?  She stands for\nnature in what may be called its sacramental aspect, and she also\nstands for the Churches, if I mistake not, and more particularly for\nthe community or order to which the writer or writers belonged.  This\nimplies a certain claim to a high mystical self-knowledge on the part\nof that community.  Again, the title \"Son Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r\" is most\nsignificant.  He that bore it must be the Son of the Sacred House, the\n\"Son of the Doctrine,\" and the First Parent, or Father in God, of those\nto come after.  He invites comparison not only with the Saviour of the\nGospels, but also with figures that appear in the myths of the mystery\ncults: with Horos, the son of Isis, with Hermes the Thrice-Great, with\nthe \"Eagle\" or \"Father\" whose title represented the highest grade of\nthe Mithriaca.  I suggest that he may represent the ideal candidate in\nthe mystery of initiation--that is to say, he who, by entering into\nhimself, has attained to the \"unio mystica,\" has raised up the \"Man\"\nwithin himself, has been \"reborn\" as a god in Divine consciousness, and\nso is qualified to hand on the vital processes of the Gn\u00f4sis to others,\nbecoming thereby their spiritual parent.  So he is called Son\nPr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r.  He is Christ in the sense that Galahad of the \"Quest,\"\nand Parsifal of Wagner's great drama are Christ.  The theory of\ninitiation as conceived in the early mystical communities seems, in\npart at any rate, to rest upon the proposition that he who has himself\nattained to Union with God is able to \"start,\" to \"initiate,\" in\nsuitable persons, and under certain conditions, those processes which,\nunder Providence, result in a like consummation.  Thus we appear to\nhave a claim in the MS. to a transmitted \"Mastership\" in the ranks of\nthe order going back to Jesus Himself: \"For whose sake resurrection is\ngiven to the body.  He is the Father of all Light-Sparks,\" The Propat\u00f4r\nand Autopat\u00f4r would seem to represent different aspects of this claim.\n\"Gn\u00f4sis\" was not the possession of a body of secret Doctrine in the\nsense of having a number of formal propositions containing occult\ninformation, but a vital knowledge of the processes of \"Regeneration\"\nor \"Apotheosis.\"\n\nThen, again, we have the idea of a \"Divine Mind\" or \"Logos\" manifesting\nHimself through a Body of Universal Consciousness, represented\nsacramentally (that is to say effectually) in the \"physical world\" by\nthe bodies of a body of believers.  The rites of this body symbolised,\nagain \"effectually,\" the modes and activities of the Body of Universal\nConsciousness of which it was the outward sign, just as its doctrines\nreflected on the plane of mentation and discourse the workings of the\nDivine Mind, which are above mentation and discourse, though not\ncontrary to it.  The acceptance of these ideas seems to have\nconstituted \"Pistis\"--\"the Faith by which we believe in the Mysteries\nof the Man\"--a mode of the Divine Energy which resulted in good works.\n\"Gn\u00f4sis\" was the knowledge of the processes by which these ideas passed\nfrom the life of formal belief and intellectual assent into the life of\nrealised consciousness.  The \"Hylics,\" men in Hyle or \"Matter,\" were\n\"the children of this world,\" so absorbed in the life of the senses\nfive that they lived like \"brute beasts without understanding.\"  [Hyle\nas a technical term was not always understood too literally by the\nGn\u00f4stics and Platonists (see various passages in Codex Bruce), but\nderived its importance as the symbol of a certain state of\nconsciousness.]  \"Psychics\" were those whose consciousness was\nsufficiently aroused to accept a formal belief in viewless Divine\nEnergies and to order their social conduct on the basis of that belief.\nThe \"Spiritual,\" the \"Perfect,\" those perfected in Gn\u00f4sis, that is,\nwere those that were actually conscious of participating in a Mind in\ncommon and in a Body of transcendental energy in common.  This Mind\n(Logos), Light-Spark, and Body (Monad) constituted a sole Being, Man,\nor the Son of Man, neither male nor female, and yet both, who enveloped\nall things, even those of Hyle (_v._ the Naasene Document) in His\nInfinite Perfections, who manifested all things, who was concealed in\nall things and who was above all things.  An ideal Church or Community\nof \"Spiritual\" men, conscious of the whole Man in each of its members,\ncould focus within itself, without any robbery, all the energies of the\nUniverse, and by concentrating and applying them in a certain manner\ncould give birth to the whole order within the consciousness of the\ncalled and chosen candidate, who thus became a \"Self-Knowing,\"\n\"Self-Fathered,\" \"Fore-Fathered\" god, a \"Race without a King in the\nname God.\"  His substance was \"enformed\" by the Sacraments of the\nManifested Order (Phaneia), and the substance thus \"enformed\" was\nfinally \"assumed,\" \"translated,\" \"transformed,\" what you will, in a\nmode utterly beyond all symbol and image by the \"descent\" of the Divine\n\"Grace,\" \"First Concept,\" \"Ennead and Monad Without Seal-Mark,\"\n\"Barb\u00eal\u00f4\" (again what you will), and given final \"Re-birth in the Light\nof the Mind.\"  To form an Ideal community of this kind, a community of\ngods in God, by a series of grades or steps, places of \"Repentance\" or\n\"change\" slowly taken, was, I believe, the purpose of those responsible\nfor the original of the present MS.  \"They began from the base upwards\nthat the building might unite them to their companions\"--souls that in\n\u00e6onian bliss beheld the Face of God unveiled.  Into this building plan\nthe Neophyte was initiated to give thereto his soul and body as a\nwilling oblation and sacrifice.  It seems a reasonable suggestion to\noffer that this document consists of a series of meditations and\nspiritual exercises given to the candidate before one of the inner\n\"initiations\" or sacramental \"starts\" that was consummated beyond the\nveil of signs and symbols.  For such an end not only Faith, not only a\nreasonable Foundation in an accepted philosophy, that of Plato, but an\nImagination intensified into intuition was needed.  Hence these strange\nhieroglyphs on the expressed veil.  The Child of Fire must behold\nrising within himself from the Immeasurable Abyss of Godhead the\nfive-rayed morning star of Love, Faith, Hope, Gn\u00f4sis, and Peace, the\nherald of the Perfect Dawn of a New Birth.\n\nPossibly \"Propat\u00f4r,\" \"Autopat\u00f4r\" and \"Pr\u00f4togenn\u00eat\u00f4r\" may also have been\nthe official designations of hierophants in the sacramental side of\nsome \"Mystery\" consummated in solitude, from which the candidate\nreturned an \"Epopt.\"\n\n(35) _Cp._ Ps. 104:1, 2: \"Thou art clothed with honour and majesty: who\ncoverest thyself with light as with a garment.\"\n\n(36) This hymn or prayer seems to be an invocation to the \"Dark Ray\" on\nbehalf of the candidate (and also for the building up of the \"Ideal\nOrder\").  The consummation, beyond all signs and images, is in the\nhands of God alone.  A \"start\" may be effected by duly qualified\nhierophants under certain conditions, but the crown \"Pantelos\" is given\nby the \"Father of all Fatherhood\" alone.\n\n(37) This looks as if in this system the Fruit of the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma was also\nthe Father of the Fullnesses.  The phrase \"He made a world and bore it\ninto the Temple\" seems to mean that He assumed a body of manifestation.\n\n(38) The veil which surrounded the Pl\u00ear\u00f4ma or World of Divine Ideas was\ncalled \"Stauros\" (Cross) and Horos (Boundary).  _Cp._ Hippolytus (vi.\n3):\n\n\"Now it is called 'Boundary' because it bounds off the Deficiency from\nthe Fullness [so as to make it] exterior to it.  It is called Partaker\nbecause it partakes of the Deficiency as well; and it is called 'Cross'\nbecause it hath been fixed immovably and unchangeably, so that nothing\nof the Deficiency should be able to approach the \u00e6ons within the\nFullness.\"\n\nSee also the \"Gn\u00f4stic Crucifixion,\" 9, 10, 11 (Acts of John): \"[The\nCross] is the defining (or delimitation) of all things, both the firm\nnecessity of things fixed from things unstable, and the harmony of\nwisdom.  And as it is Wisdom in Harmony, there are those on the Right\nand those on the Left--powers, authorities, principalities and daemons,\nenergies, threats, powers of wrath, slanderings--and the Lower Root\nfrom which hath come forth the things in genesis.  This, then, is the\nCross which by the Word hath been the means of 'Cross-beaming' all\nthings--at the same time separating off the things that proceed from\ngenesis and those below from those above, and also compacting them all\ninto one.\"\n\nThe \"Mantle\" in which the Man is clad and which severs and orders all\nthings is evidently another aspect of the same idea.\n\nThe use of the term \"veil\" is suggestive, as the term is so often\nemployed in Hellenistic Mysticism in connection with \"Initiation.\"\nFinally, it is just worth noting that it is possible that what Origen\nhas to say about the self-limitation of God is influenced by the\ntradition concerning the Horos or \"Boundary.\"\n\n(39) This is undoubtedly a reference to the Mystical Crucifixion so\noften mentioned in previous notes.  It is the Master Symbol of the\nUnitive State, of the reconciliation and union of God and Man, and of\nthe participation of the individual in the Universal.  Its presence at\nthis point of the text is most suggestive.  The candidate, \"the Birth\nof Matter,\" stands, mystically at any rate, before the Veil at the Foot\nof the Cross.  To pass the Veil and to enter into the Fullness means\nbeing united with the Master in His Passion and Crucifixion.\n\nThe Cross is evidently a Tau, and I suggest that the frontispiece may\nrepresent this Mystery, the Crucifixion of the \u00c6on, O, upon Staurus,\nthe Cross and the Master being One, A+\u00d4+ and A+\u00d4+.  The meaning of XMI\nis unknown.  It has been suggested that it is (with EIC +THEOS+) a\nsymbol of the Trinity in Unity, or a veil of the Divine Name.\n\n(40) The terms I have translated as \"Sole Unstainable,\" \"Sole\n[Foundation]-stone of Adamant\" are \"Amiantos,\" \"Adamantos.\"  Besides\nmeaning \"unstainable,\" Amiantos was the name of a pale green stone.\nReaders interested in the legend of the Graal will recall that the\nGraal is represented as a green stone in the \"Parzival\" of Von\nEschenbach.  \"Adamantos\" is \"diamond.\"  Here and in the account of the\nMonad as the Metropolis of Monogenes, \"filled with men of every race\nand with all the statues of the king,\" there is a curious parallel to\nbe found to a happening in the life of Saint Theresa.  \"Being once in\nprayer,\" she says, \"the Diamond was represented to me like a flash;\nalthough I saw nothing formed, still, it was a representation with all\nclearness how all things are seen in God, and how all are contained in\nHim....  Let us say that the Divinity is like a very lustrous Diamond,\nlarger than all the world, or like a mirror--and all that we do is seen\nin this Diamond, it being so fashioned that it includes everything\nwithin itself, because there is nothing but what is contained in this\nmagnitude.\"\n\nI have ventured to insert [Foundation] because I think that there is a\npunning allusion to \"Adamas.\"  _Cp._ Naasene Document: \"The 'rock'\nmeans Adamas.  This is the corner-stone ... which I insert in the\nfoundation of Zion.  By this he means allegorically the plasm of man.\nFor Adamas, who is inserted in the inner Man, and the foundations of\nZion are ... the wall and palisade (_sc._ Horos) in which is the inner\nMan.\"\n\n(41) The prayer seems to be for the transmutation of the members of the\norder by mystical marriages with their archetypal \"selves,\" that the\nmysteries of the Crucifixion, Resurrection, Ascension, and of the\nDescent of the Paraclete may be realised after a certain manner.\n\n(42) Compare this passage with what has already been said concerning an\nattempt to form an Ideal Order.  \"A place of Metanoia\" implies here a\nradical change of the whole being rather than \"repentance\" as\nordinarily understood.  The \"topos\" of Autog\u00eanes, the Self-begotten,\nwas the first station of the journey of the Light-Spark without the\nPl\u00ear\u00f4ma, and is the last station of the return within.\n\nThe extant \"Gospel of Mary\" (Codex Akhmim), which was \"reviewed\" by\nIrenaeus, and was therefore composed before 180 A.D., states that from\nthe Light of the Christ and the Incorruptible proceed forth four great\nLights to surround Autog\u00eanes.  Their names are Harmozel, \u00d4roia\u00eal,\nDaveithi, and \u00c8l\u00eal\u00eath.  Irenaeus says, \"Charis [Grace] was conjoined\nwith the great and first Luminary, and this they will have to be the\nSaviour and call him Harmogen\"--the Harmes-begotten.  The name \"Harmes\"\nappears in the present MS., and is evidently a name for Barb\u00eal\u00f4.  These\nthings are important for the date of the Greek original.  The allusions\nto Pistis-Sophia are probably interpolated; there seems to be no room\nfor her adventures in the scheme of the text.  But what are we to make\nof the mysterious \"Baptism in the name of Barpharanges\"?  Does\n\"Barpharanges\" (the meaning of which no one seems to know) simply =\nHarmogenes = the begotten from Barb\u00eal\u00f4, \"the Virginal Spirit,\" the\nImage seen in the \"pure water of Light\"?  If so, then we have in all\nprobability an allusion to the Gn\u00f4stic Baptism with the Holy Spirit or\nLight.  \"Harmogenes\" will be the Child of the Mystical Marriage with\nthe Virginal Spirit by which the \"Spiritual\" recover their true\nmanhood, a \"blessed \u00e6on of \u00e6ons\": that is to say, that the Epopt\nhimself is mystically \"Autog\u00eanes,\" the \"Self-begotten,\" having been\nreborn a god in God.\n\nThe rest of the text is missing.\n\n43.  This Hymn to the Light seems to stand in some close connection\nwith the text we have been discussing.  If what has been suggested\nconcerning the contents of the Greek original should prove correct,\nboth the nature and position of the Hymn become plain.  It consists of\nvarious acts of the will not altogether unlike some of those prescribed\nin certain Catholic manuals for those in the Unitive way.  It is the\nform of Prayer given by the \"Director\" or \"Master\" to his disciple, to\nbe used together with the MS. as part of his preparation for, what I\nbelieve to be, the \"Baptism of Light.\"  A large part of the Hymn seems\nto be missing owing to the state of the MS., and the order is uncertain.\n\n\n\n\n\nPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY NEILL AND CO., LTD., EDINBURGH.\n\n\n\n\n\nJOHN M. WATKINS\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo.  Price 2s. net.  Post free 2s. 2d.\n\nThe Ladder of Reality.\n\nBy W. SCOTT-PALMER,\n\nAuthor of \"A Modern Mystic's Way.\"\n\n\"A book with a message.  It deals with those interior things of life\nthat under the stress of life to-day are coming more and more into the\nouter world, fore-runners of a new grade of spiritual evolution which\nwill lift us all by degrees out of the 'narrow schemings and unworthy\ncares' that have cramped us so painfully in the past.\"\n\n\n\nTHIRD LARGE EDITION.\n\nFrontispiece.  Cloth, 8vo, pp. 151.\n\nPrice 2s. 6d. net.  Post free 2s. 8d.\n\nThe Path of the Eternal Wisdom.\n\nBy JOHN CORDELIER.\n\nA Mystical Commentary on the Way of the Cross.\n\n\n\nFrontispiece.  F'cap 8vo, pp. 180.  Leather, 3s. 6d. net; post free 3s.\n9d.  Cloth 2s. 6d. net; post free 2s. 9d.\n\nThe Spiral Way.\n\nBeing Meditations upon the Fifteen Mysteries of the Soul's Ascent.\n\nBy JOHN CORDELIER,\n\nAuthor of \"The Path of the Eternal Wisdom.\"\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 151.  Price 2s.  Post free 2s. 2d.\n\nEarly English Instructions and Devotions.\n\nRendered into Modern English by GERALDINE E. HODGSON, D. Litt.,\nLecturer in Education in the University of Bristol.\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 176.  Price 2s. net.  Post free 2s. 3d.\n\nA Handbook of Mystical Theology.\n\nBeing an Abridgment of \"Il Direttorio Mistico,\" by G. B. SCARAMELLI,\nS.J.\n\nBy D. H. S. NICHOLSON.\n\nCONTENTS.--Preface--Preliminary--Contemplation generally--Grades of\nContemplation--Visions--Locutions and Revelations--Purgation.\n\n\n\nCloth, Imp. 16mo, pp. 321.  Price 3s. 6d. net.  Inland postage 5d.;\nForeign 8d.\n\nContemplations:\n\nBeing Studies in Christian Mysticism.\n\nBy WALTER LESLIE WILMSHURST.\n\nCONTENTS.--Concerning Thieves--On Crucifixion--The Tethered Ass--The\nRaising of the Dead--When Two shall be One--The New Priesthood--St.\nWinefride's Well and Legend--The Scientific Apprehension of the\nSuper-Physical World.\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 302.  Price 3s. 6d. net.  Post free 3s. 10d.\n\nThe Way to Christ.\n\nDescribed in the following treatises: Of True Repentance--Of True\nResignation--Of the Super-Sensual Life--Of Regeneration.\n\nBy JACOB BOEHME.\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 328.  Price 2s. 6d. net.  Post free 2s. 10d.\n\nThe Following of Christ.\n\nBy JOHN TAULER.\n\nDone into English by J. R. MORELL.\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 314.  Price 3s. 6d. net.  Post free 3s. 9d.\n\nA BOOK OF CONTEMPLATION THE WHICH IS CALLED\n\nThe Cloud of Unknowing.\n\nIN THE WHICH A SOUL IS ONED WITH GOD.\n\nFrom the British Museum MS.\n\nWith an Introduction by EVELYN UNDERHILL.\n\n\n\nF'cap 8vo.  Price 2s. net.  Post free 2s. 2d.\n\nFlowers of a Mystic Garden.\n\nSelections from the Writings of JOHN RUYSBROECK.\n\nTranslated by C. E. S.\n\n\n\nCloth, F'cap 8vo.  Price 2s. net.  Post free 2s. 2d.\n\nThe Book of the Twelve B\u00e9guines.\n\nBy JAN VAN RUYSBROECK.\n\nTranslated from the Flemish by JOHN FRANCIS.\n\n\n\nWORKS OF JACOB B\u00d6HME.\n\nCloth, Royal 8vo, pp. lxiv + 809.  Price 15s. net.\n\nThe Three Principles of the Divine Essence.\n\nWith an Introduction by Dr PAUL DEUSSEN.\n\n\n\nCloth, Royal 8vo, pp. liii + 310 and vii + 54.\n\nPrice 10s. 6d. net.\n\nThe Forty Questions of the Soul\n\nAND\n\nThe Clavis.\n\nWith Emendations by D. S. HEHNER.\n\n\n\nPOCKET EDITION.  Cloth, F'cap 8vo, pp. 302.\n\nPrice 3s. 6d. net.\n\nThe Way to Christ:\n\nOf True Repentance.  Of True Resignation.  Of Regeneration.  Of the\nSupersensual Life.\n\n\n\nUniform with the \"Three Principles,\" \"Threefold Life,\" and \"Forty\nQuestions.\"\n\nCloth, Royal 8vo, pp. xlvii + 723.  With Photogravure Frontispiece.\nPrice 12s. 6d. net.\n\n\nThe Aurora.\n\nTranslated by JOHN SPARROW.\n\nEdited by C. J. B. and D. S. H.\n\nIn his preface to the reader, John Sparrow writes: \"I must say that\nthis book, 'Aurora,' hath conduced more to open my mind to the\nunderstanding of all his writings, and of all Mysteries, both natural\nand divine (and so, consequently, of the Holy Scriptures) than any\nother helps and books which I could ever meet withal besides....  In\nhis 'Aurora' the ground of those terms [the succinct, very deeply\nexpressed terms employed in his later books] is largely and plainly\ndescribed in a childish way, after the manner of the infancy of his\nhigh manifestation; so that it is a large and most clear ABC, being the\nfitter and plainer for beginners, and with his other books may the\neasier be understood; and it is a summary contents of all his\nMysteries, and may serve instead of a manuduction, introduction, and\nkey to unlock all the difficult expressions in his other books.\"\n\n\n\n21 Cecil Court, Charing Cross Road, W.C. 2.","title":"The Gn\u00f4sis of the Light","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":21223}