But this same one, he says, the Phrygians[106] call also Papas, because he set at rest that which had been moved irregularly and discordantly before his coming. For the name of Papa, he says, is (taken from) all things in heaven, on earth, and below the earth, saying: “Make to cease! make to cease![107] the discord of the cosmos and make peace for those that are afar off,”[108] that is, for the material and earthly, and also “for those that are anigh,” that is, for the spiritual and understanding perfect men. But the Phrygians say that the same one is also a “corpse,” having been buried in the body as in a monument or tomb.[109] This, he says, is the saying: “Ye are whited sepulchres filled within with dead men’s bones,”[110] that is, there is not within you the living Man. And again, he says, “the dead shall leap forth from their graves,”[111] that is, the spiritual man, not the fleshly, shall be born again from the bodies of the earthly. This, he says, is the resurrection which comes through the p. 166. gate of the heavens, through which if they do not enter, all remain dead. And the same Phrygians, he says again, say that this same one is by reason of the change a god. For he becomes God when he arises from the dead and enters into heaven through the same gate. This gate, he says, Paul the Apostle knew, having set it ajar in mystery and declaring that he “was caught up by an angel and came unto a second and third heaven into Paradise itself and beheld what he beheld, and heard ineffable words which it is not lawful for man to utter.”[112] These are, he says, the mysteries called ineffable by all “which (we also speak) not in the words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual; but the natural[113] man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him”;[114] and these, he says, are the ineffable mysteries of the Spirit which we alone behold. Concerning them, he says, the Saviour spake: “No man shall come unto me unless my heavenly Father draw some one (unto me).”[115] For very hard it is, he says, to receive and take this great and ineffable mystery. And p. 167. again, he says, the Saviour spake: “Not every one who sayeth unto me, Lord! Lord! shall enter into the kingdom of the heavens, but he who doeth the will of my Father who is in the heavens.”[116] Of which (will) he says, they must be doers and not hearers only to enter into the kingdom of the heavens. And again, says he, He spake: “The publicans and the harlots go before you into the kingdom of the heavens.”[117] For the publicans, he says, are those who receive the taxes of market-wares, and we are the tax-gatherers “upon whom the ends of the æons have come down.”[118] For the “ends,” he says, are the seeds sown in the cosmos by the Unportrayable One,[119] whereby the whole cosmos is completed;[120] for by them also it began to be. And this, he says, is the saying: “The sower went forth to sow, and some (seed) fell on the wayside and was trodden under foot, and some upon stony (parts) and sprang up; and because it had no root, he says, it withered and died. But some fell, he says, upon the fair and goodly earth and brought forth some a hundredfold, and some sixty and some thirty. p. 168. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”[121] This is, he says, that no one becomes a hearer of these mysteries save only the perfect Gnostics. This, he says, is the fair and goodly earth of which Moses spake: “I will bring you to a fair and goodly land, to a land flowing with milk and honey.”[122] This, he says, is the honey and the milk, tasting which the perfect become kingless and partakers of the fulness.[123] The same, he says, is the Pleroma, whereby all things that are begotten by the unbegotten have come into being and are filled.
But the same one is called by the Phrygians “unfruitful.” For he is unfruitful when he is fleshly and performs the desire of the flesh. This, he says, is the saying: “Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire.”[124] For these fruits, he says, are only the rational, the living man who enter by the third gate.[125] They say, indeed: “Ye who eat dead things and make living ones, what will ye make if ye eat living things?”[126] For they say that words[127] and thoughts and men are living things cast down by that Unportrayable One into the form p. 169. below. This, he says, is what he means: “Throw not your holy things to the dogs nor pearls to the swine,”[128] saying that the intercourse of woman with man is the work of dogs and swine.
But this same one, he says, the Phrygians call goatherd, not because, he says, he feeds goats and he-goats, as the psychic man calls them, but because, he says, he is Aipolos, that is, he who is ever revolving[129] and turning about and driving the whole cosmos in its circumvolution. For to revolve is to turn about and to change the position of things, whence, he says, the two centres of the heaven men call Poles. And the poet says:—
“What unerring ancient of the sea turns hither
The Immortal Egyptian Proteus.”—
(Odyssey, IV, 384.)
He[130] is not betrayed (by Eidothea), he says, but turns himself about, as it were, and goes to and fro. He says, too, that cities wherein we dwell are called πόλεις, because p. 170. we turn and go about in them. Thus, he says, the Phrygians call him Aipolos, who turns everything always in every direction and changes it into what it should be. But the Phrygians also call the same one “of many fruits,” because (the Naassene writer) says, “the children of the desolate are more in number than those of her who has a husband”;[131] that is, the deathless things which are born again and ever remain are many, if few are those which are born (once); but all the things of the flesh, he says, are corruptible, even if those which are born are many. Wherefore, he says, Rachel mourned for her children and would not be comforted when mourning over them, for she knew, he says, that they were not.[132] And Jeremiah wails for the Jerusalem below, not the city in Phœnicia,[133] but the mortal generation below. For Jeremiah, he says, also knew the Perfect Man who has been born again of water and the spirit and is not fleshly. The same Jeremiah indeed said: “He is a man, and who shall know him?”[134] Thus, he says, the knowledge of the Perfect Man is very deep and hard to comprehend. For the beginning of perfection, he says, is the knowledge of man; but the knowledge of God is completed perfection.
p. 171.The Phrygians also say, however, that he is a “green ear of corn reaped”; and following the Phrygians, the Athenians when initiating (any one) into the Eleusinian (Mysteries) also show to those who have been made epopts the mighty and wonderful and most perfect mystery for an epopt[135] there—a green ear of corn reaped in silence.[136] And this ear of corn is also for the Athenians the great and perfect spark of light from the Unportrayable One; just as the hierophant himself, not indeed castrated like Attis, but rendered a eunuch by hemlock, and cut off from all fleshly generation, celebrating by night at Eleusis the great and ineffable mysteries beside a huge fire, cries aloud and makes proclamation, saying: “August Brimo has brought forth a holy son, Brimos,” that is, the strong (has given birth) to the strong.[137] For august is, he says, the generation which is spiritual or heavenly or sublime, and strong is that which is thus generated. For the mystery is called Eleusis or Anacterion: “Eleusis,” he says, because we spiritual ones p. 172. came on high rushing from the Adamas below.[138] For eleusesthai, he says is to come, but anactoreion the return on high. This, he says, is what they who have been initiated into the mysteries of the Eleusinians say. But it is a regulation that those who have been initiated into the Lesser Mysteries should moreover be initiated into the Great. For greater destinies obtain greater portions.[139] But the Lesser Mysteries, he says, are those of Persephone below and of the way leading thither, which is wide and broad and bears the dead to Persephone, and the poet says:—
“But under her is a straight and rugged road
Hollow and muddy, but the best to lead