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THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

_Net._

THRICE GREATEST HERMES (3 vols.) 30/-

FRAGMENTS OF A FAITH FORGOTTEN 10/6

DID JESUS LIVE 100 B.C.? 9/-

THE WORLD-MYSTERY 5/-

THE GOSPEL AND THE GOSPELS 4/6

APOLLONIUS OF TYANA 3/6

THE UPANISHADS (2 vols.) 3/-

PLOTINUS 1/-

ECHOES FROM THE GNOSIS

BY G. R. S. MEAD

VOL. VII.

THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION

THE THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING SOCIETY LONDON AND BENARES 1907

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

ECHOES FROM THE GNOSIS.

Under this general title is now being published a series of small volumes, drawn from, or based upon, the mystic, theosophic and gnostic writings of the ancients, so as to make more easily audible for the ever-widening circle of those who love such things, some echoes of the mystic experiences and initiatory lore of their spiritual ancestry. There are many who love the life of the spirit, and who long for the light of gnostic illumination, but who are not sufficiently equipped to study the writings of the ancients at first hand, or to follow unaided the labours of scholars. These little volumes are therefore intended to serve as introduction to the study of the more difficult literature of the subject; and it is hoped that at the same time they may become for some, who have, as yet, not even heard of the Gnosis, stepping-stones to higher things.

G. R. S. M.

THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 9

THE VISION OF THE CROSS 12

COMMENTS 20

POSTCRIPT 69

TEXTS

Bonnet (M.), _Acta Apostolorum Apocrypha_ (Leipzig, 1898).

James (M. R.), _Apocrypha Anecdota, T. & S._, v. i. (Cambridge, 1897).

_F._ = _Fragments of a Faith Forgotten_, 2nd. ed. (London, 1906).

_H._ = _Thrice Greatest Hermes_ (London, 1906).

ECHOES FROM THE GNOSIS

VOL. I. THE GNOSIS OF THE MIND. VOL. II. THE HYMNS OF HERMES. VOL. III. THE VISION OF ARIDÆUS. VOL. IV. THE HYMN OF JESUS. VOL. V. THE MYSTERIES OF MITHRA. VOL. VI. A MITHRIAC RITUAL. VOL. VII. THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION.

SOME PROPOSED SUBJECTS FOR FORTHCOMING VOLUMES

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

THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION.

PREFACE.

The Gnostic Mystery of the Crucifixion is most clearly set forth in the new-found fragments of _The Acts of John_, and follows immediately on the Sacred Dance and Ritual of Initiation which we endeavoured to elucidate in Vol. IV. of these little books, in treating of _The Hymn of Jesus_.

The reader is, therefore, referred to the "Preamble" of that volume for a short introduction concerning the nature of the Gnostic Acts in general and of the Leucian _Acts of John_ in particular. I would, however, add a point of interest bearing on the date which was forgotten, though I have frequently remarked upon it when lecturing on the subject.

The strongest proof that we have in our fragment very early material is found in the text itself, when it relates the following simple form of the miracle of the loaves.

"Now if at any time He were invited by one of the Pharisees and went to the bidding, we used to go with Him. And before each was set a single loaf by the host; and of them He Himself also received one. Then He would give thanks and divide His loaf among us; and from this little each had enough, and our own loaves were saved whole, so that those who bade Him were amazed."

If the marvellous narratives of the feeding of the five thousand had been already in circulation, it is incredible that this simple story, which we may so easily believe, should have been invented. Of what use, when the minds of the hearers had been strung to the pitch of faith which had already accepted the feeding of the five thousand as an actual physical occurrence, would it have been to invent comparatively so small a wonder? On the other hand, it is easy to believe that from similar simple stories of the power of the Master, which were first of all circulated in the inner circles, the popular narratives of the multitude-feeding miracles could be developed. We, therefore, conclude, with every probability, that we have here an indication of material of very early date.

Nevertheless when we come to the Mystery of the Crucifixion as set forth in our fragment, we are not entitled to argue that the popular history was developed from it in a similar fashion. The problem it raises is of another order, and to it we will return when the reader has been put in possession of the narrative, as translated from Bonnet's text. John is supposed to be the narrator.

(The Arabic figures and the Roman figures in square brackets refer respectively to Bonnet's and James' texts. I have added the side figures for convenience of reference in the comments.)

THE VISION OF THE CROSS.

1. [97 (xii.)] And having danced these things with us, Beloved, the Lord went out. And we, as though beside ourselves, or wakened out of sleep, fled each our several ways.

2. I, however, though I saw the beginning of His passion could not stay to the end, but fled unto the Mount of Olives weeping over that which had befallen.

3. And when He was hung on the tree of the cross, at the sixth hour of the day darkness came over the whole earth.

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

4. "John, to the multitude below, in Jerusalem, I am being crucified, and pierced with spears and reeds, and vinegar and gall is being given Me to drink. To thee now I speak, and give ear to what I say. 'Twas I who put it in thy heart to ascend this Mount, that thou mightest hear what disciple should learn from Master, and man from God."

5. [98 (xiii.)] And having thus spoken, He showed me a Cross of Light set up, and round the Cross a vast multitude, and therein one form and a similar appearance, and in the Cross another multitude not having one form.

6. And I beheld the Lord Himself above the Cross. He had, however, no shape, but only as it were a voice--not, however, this voice to which we are accustomed, but one of its own kind and beneficent and truly of God, saying unto me:

7. "John, one there needs must be to hear those things, from Me; for I long for one who will hear.

8. "This Cross of Light is called by Me for your sakes sometimes Word (Logos), sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus, sometimes Christ, sometimes Door, sometimes Way, sometimes Bread, sometimes Seed, sometimes Resurrection, sometimes Son, sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes Life, sometimes Truth, sometimes Faith, sometimes Grace.

9. "Now those things [it is called] as towards men; but as to what it is in truth, itself in its own meaning to itself, and declared unto Us, [it is] the defining (or delimitation) of all things, both the firm necessity of things fixed from things unstable, and the 'harmony' of Wisdom.

10. "And as it is Wisdom in 'harmony,' there are those on the Right and those on the Left--powers, authorities, principalities, and dæmons, energies, threats, powers of wrath, slanderings--and the Lower Root from which hath come forth the things in genesis.

11 [99]. "This, then, is the Cross which by the Word (Logos) hath been the means of 'cross-beaming' all things--at the same time separating off the things that proceed from genesis and those below it [from those above], and also compacting them all into one.

12. "But this is not the cross of wood which thou shalt see when thou descendest hence; nor am I he that is upon the cross--[I] whom now thou seest not, but only hearest a voice.

13. "I was held [to be] what I am not, not being what I was to many others; nay, they will call Me something else, abject and not worthy of Me. As, then, the Place of Rest is neither seen nor spoken of, much more shall I, the Lord of it, be neither seen [nor spoken of].

14. [100 (xiv.)] "Now the multitude of one appearance round the Cross is the Lower Nature. And as to those whom thou seest in the Cross, if they have not also one form, [it is because] the whole Race (or every Limb) of Him who descended hath not yet been gathered together.

15. "But when the Upper Nature, yea, the Race that is coming unto Me, in obedience to My Voice, is taken up, then thou who now hearkenest to Me, shalt become it, and it shall no longer be what it is now, but above them as I am now.

16. "For so long as thou callest not thyself Mine, I am not what I am. But if thou hearkenest unto Me, hearing, thou, too, shalt be as I [am], and I shall be what I was, when thou [art] as I am with Myself; for from this thou art.

17. "Pay no attention, then, to the many, and them that are without the mystery think little of; for know that I am wholly with the Father and the Father with Me.

18. [101 (xv.)] "Nothing, then, of the things which they will say of Me have I suffered; nay that Passion as well which I showed unto thee and the rest, by dancing [it], I will that it be called a mystery.

19. "What thou art, thou seest; this did I show unto thee. But what I am, this I alone know, [and] none else.

20. "What, then, is Mine suffer Me to keep; but what is thine see thou through Me. To see Me as I really am I said is not possible, but only what thou art able to recognise, as being kin [to Me] (or of the same Race).

21. "Thou hearest that I suffered; yet I did not suffer: that I suffered not; yet I did suffer: that I was pierced; yet was I not smitten: that I was hanged; yet I was not hanged: that blood flowed from me; yet it did not flow: and in a word the things they say about Me I had not, and the things they do not say those I suffered. Now what they are I will riddle for thee; for I know that thou wilt understand.

22. "Understand, therefore, in Me, the slaying of a Word (Logos), the piercing of a Word, the blood of a Word, the wounding of a Word, the hanging of a Word, the passion of a Word, the nailing (or putting together) of a Word, the death of a Word.

23. "And thus I speak separating off the man. First, then, understand the Word, then shalt thou understand the Lord, and in the third place [only] the man and what he suffered."

24. [102 (xvi.)] And having said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as He Himself would have it, He was taken up, no one of the multitude beholding Him.

25. And when I descended I laughed at them all, when they told Me what they did concerning Him, firmly possessed in myself of this [truth] only, that the Lord contrived all things symbolically, and according to [His] dispensation for the conversion and salvation of man.

COMMENTS.

The translation is frequently a matter of difficulty, for the text has been copied in a most careless and unintelligent fashion, so that the ingenuity of the editors has often been taxed to the utmost and has not infrequently completely broken down. It is of course quite natural that orthodox scribes should blunder when transcribing Gnostic documents, owing to their ignorance of the subject and their strangeness to the ideas; but this particular copyist is at times quite barbarous, and as the subject is deeply mystical and deals with the unexpected, the reconstruction of the original reading is a matter of great difficulty. With a number of passages I am still unsatisfied, though I hope they are somewhat nearer the spirit of the original than other reconstructions which have been attempted.

It is always a matter of difficulty for the rigidly objective mind to understand the point of view of the Gnostic scripture-writers. One thing, however, is certain: they lived in times when the rigid orthodoxy of the canon was not yet established. They were in the closest touch with the living tradition of scripture-writing, and they knew the manner of it.

The probability is that paragraphs 1-3 are from the pen of the redactor or compiler of the _Acts_, and that the narrative, beginning with the words "And my Lord stood in the midst of the Cave," is incorporated from prior material--a mystic vision or apocalypse circulated in the inner circles.

The compiler knows the general Gospel-story, and seems prepared to admit its historical basis; at the same time he knows well that the story circulated among the people is but the outer veil of the mystery, and so he hands on what we may well believe was but one of many visions of the mystic crucifixion.

The gentle contempt of those who had entered into the mystery, for those unknowing ones who would fain limit the crucifixion to one brief historic event, is brought out strongly, and savours, though mildly, of the bitterness of the struggle between the two great forces of the inner and spiritualizing and the outer and materializing traditions.

1. The disciples flee after beholding the inner mystery of the Passion and At-one-ment as set forth in the initiating drama of the Mystic Dance which formed the subject of our fourth volume.

2. Yet even John the Beloved, in spite of this initiation, cannot yet bear the thought that his Master did actually suffer historically as a malefactor on the physical cross. In his distress he flees unto the Mount of Olives, above Jerusalem.

But to the Gnostic the Mount of Olives was no physical hill, though it was a mount in the physical, and Jerusalem no physical city, though a city in the physical. The Mount, however it might be distinguished locally, was the Height of Contemplation, and the bringing into activity of a certain inner consciousness; even as Jerusalem here was the Jerusalem below, the physical consciousness.

3. The sentence "when He was hung on the tree of the Cross" contains a great puzzle. The word for "tree" in the original is _batos_; this may mean the "bush" or "tree" of the cross. But the Cross for the Gnostics was a living symbol. It was not only the cross of dead wood, or the dead trunk of a tree lopped of its branches--a symbol of Osiris in death; it was also the Tree of Life, and was equated with the "Fiery Bush" out of which the Angel of God spake to Moses--that is the Tree of Fiery Life, in the Paradise of man's inner nature, whence the Word of God expresses itself to one who is worthy to hear. And this Tree of Life was also, as the Cross, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; indeed, both are but one Tree, for the fruit of the Tree of Life is the knowledge of good and evil, the cross of the opposites.

But seeing that the word _batos_ in Greek had also another meaning, the Gnostics, by their method of mystical word-play, based on the power of sound, brought this further meaning into use for the expansion of the idea. The difference of accentuation and of gender (though the reading of the Septuagint is masculine and not feminine as is usual with _batos_ in the sense of bush or tree) presented no difficulty to the word-alchemy of these allegorists.

Hippolytus, in his _Refutation of all Heretics_, attempts to summarize a system of the Christianized Gnosis which is assigned to the Docetæ; and Docetism is precisely the chief characteristic of our _Acts of John_, as we have already pointed out in Vol. IV. In this unsympathetic summary there is a passage which throws some light on our puzzle. It would, of course, require a detailed analysis of our hæresiologist's "refutation" of the Docetic system to make the passage to which we refer (_op. cit._, viii., 9) fully comprehensible; but as this would be too lengthy an undertaking for these short comments, we must content ourselves with a bald statement.

The pure spiritual emanations or ideas or intelligences of the Light descend into the lowest Darkness of matter. For the moulding of vehicles or bodies for them it is necessary to call in the aid of the God of Fire, the creative or rather formative Power, who is "Living Fire begotten of Light."

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

"Moses refers to this God as the Fiery God who spake from the _Batos_, that is to say, from the Dark Air; for _Batos_ is all the Air subjected to Darkness."

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

"Moses called it _Batos_, because, in their passing from Above, Below, all the Ideas of the Light [that is, the Light-sparks or spirits of men] used the Air as their means of passage (_batos_)."

In other words _Batos_, as Air, was the link between Light and Darkness, which Darkness was regarded as essentially a flowing or Watery chaos. The Batos was the Way Down and the Way Up of souls.

We are not, however, to suppose that the origin of this idea was the text of _Exodus_. By no means; the idea came first, indeed was fundamental with the Gnosis; the mystic exegesis of the "burning bush" passage was an exercise in ingenuity. For the Gnosis, the that which at once separated and united the Light and the Darkness was the Cross. The Angel of God speaking to Moses out of the Fiery Batos was for the Christian Gnostics one of the most striking apocalypses of ancient Jewish scripture; and it was primarily one of the chief functions of the Gnosis to throw light on the under-meaning. This the Docetic exegete does in his own fashion, using the reading of the Greek Targum or Translation of the Seventy, in this wise: "_Batos?_ _Batos_ does not mean 'bush' really, but 'medium of transmission,'" It is by means of this that the Word of God comes unto us--namely, by the mystery of the uniter-separator in one, which was called by many names.

For instance, in setting forth the Sophia-mythus, or Wisdom-story, or mystery of cosmogenesis, of the Valentinian school, Hippolytus (_op. cit._, vi. 3), treats of the Cross as the final mystery of all. With original documents before him, he writes:

"Now it is called Boundary, because it bounds off the Deficiency from the Fullness [so as to make it] exterior to it; it is called Partaker because it partakes of the Deficiency as well; and it is called Cross (or Stock) because it hath been fixed immovably and unchangeably, so that nothing of the Deficiency should be able to approach the eternities within the Fullness."

Here it is useless to tie oneself to the physical symbol of a cross. The Stauros (Cross) in its true self is a living idea, a reality or root-principle. It is the principle of separation and limit, dividing entity from non-entity, being from non-being, perfection from imperfection, fullness or sufficiency from deficiency or insufficiency--Light from Darkness. It is the that which causes all opposites. At the same time it shares in all opposites, for it is the immediate emanation of the Father Himself, and therefore unites while separating. It is, therefore, the principle of participation or sharing in, sharing in both the Fullness and the Deficiency. Finally, it is the Stock or Pillar as that which "has stood, stands and will stand"--the principle of immobility, as the energy of the Father in His aspect of the supreme Individuality that changes not, because he is Lord of the ever-changing.

That such a master-idea is difficult to grasp goes without saying; it was confessedly the supreme mystery. From it the mind, the formal mind of man, "falls back unable to grasp it"; for it is precisely this personal mind that creates duality, and insinuates itself between cause and effect. The spiritual Mind alone can embrace the opposites.

But to return to our text. "When He was hung on the _batos_ of the Cross"--when He had reached the state of balance, was in the mystic centre--then at the sixth hour, that is mid-day, when there was greatest light, there was also greatest darkness.

And then when the Lord, the Higher Self of the man, was balanced and justified, the man, the disciple, became conscious, in the cave of his heart--that is to say, in his inmost substantial nature--of the Presence of Light.

4. Thereon follow the illumination and the explanation of the familiar drama of appearance taught to those "without the mystery."

"The multitude below in Jerusalem" is the lower nature of the man, his unillumined mind. "Jerusalem Below" is set over against "Jerusalem Above," the City of God. Jerusalem Below is that nature in him that is still unordered and unpurified; while Jerusalem Above is that ordered and purified portion of his substance that can respond to the immediate shining of the Light, which further orders it according to the Ordering of Heaven.

And yet the drama below is real enough; there are ever crucifixion and piercing and the drinking of vinegar and gall, before the triumphant Christ is born. It is by such means that His Body is conformed; it is the mystery of the transformation of what we call evil into good. The Body of the Christ is perfected by the absorption of the impersonal evil of the world, which He transmutes into blessing.

"'Twas I who put it in thy heart to ascend this Mount." I am thy Self, thy true God; 'twas I energizing in thee who enabled thee to rise to the height of contemplation, where thou canst "hear what disciple should learn from Master and man from God." The man has now reached the stage of Hearer in the Spiritual Mysteries.

5. There then follows the vision of the great Cross of Light, fixed firm, and stretching from earth to heaven. Round its foot on earth is a vast multitude of all the nations of the world; they resemble one another in that they are configured according to the Darkness, their "Spark burns low." On the Cross, or in it, for doubtless the seer saw within as well as without, was another multitude of various grades of light, being formed into some marvellous Image like unto the Divine, but not yet completed--as it might be the Rose on the Cross, in the famous symbol of the Rosicrucians.

6. And above the Cross, lost in the dazzling brilliancy of the Fullness, John beheld the Lord; he _beheld_ but could not _see_, because of the Great Light, as we are told in another great vision of the Master in the _Pistis Sophia_. He can hear only a Voice. But this Voice is no voice of man, but one "truly of God"--a Bath-kol or "Heavenly Voice," as the Rabbis called it--a Voice of sweetest reasonableness, using no words, but of a higher order of utterance, that can make the man speak to himself in his own language, using his own terms.

7. The sentence "I long for one who will hear," is instinct with the yearning of the Divine Love, the eagerness to bestow, the longing to speak if only there be one to hear.

8. There then follows a list of synonyms of the Cross, every one of which shows that the Cross, if a symbol, must be taken to denote the master-symbol of all symbols. It is the key to the chief nomenclature of the Gnosis and the greatest terms of the Gospel. These terms, it is stated, are used by the Wisdom "for your sakes," that is, to bring home in many ways to the hearts of men the intuition of the mystery.

As is explained later on in the text, the mystery of the Cross is the mystery of the Word, the Spiritual Man, or Great Man, the Divine Individuality. Therefore is it called Word or Reason, Mind, Jesus and Christ. Son and Father; for Jesus is the Christ, both as human and divine, the two natures uniting in one in the Cross; and the Son is the Father in a still more divine meaning of the mystery; for both Son and Cross are of the Father alone, they are Himself manifesting Himself to Himself. The whole is the mystery of Atman or the Self.

The Door is the Door of the Two in One, the state of equilibrium of the opposites which opens out into the all-embracing consciousness and understanding of all oppositions.