I think also that the original MS. was based upon the work of one Master, whose name, like that of the order to which he belonged, is lost in the night of time, but that it also contains amplifications and additions by at least one later hand. It will thus represent the mind of a grade of teaching, and possibly contains material dating back to the period of the Therapeutae that Philo knew. In other words, the community may have been an old one before it was Christianised. In any case, it remains the record of a stupendous spiritual adventure, the attempt to produce a race of Divinised men, that is not without the splendour of tragedy, for at some time, like the Holy Cup of Legend, the presence of Masterhood departed, and the external house fell into ruin and its place knew it no more. Perhaps, in the desire to propagate, it admitted unworthy candidates; perhaps it turned to the by-ways of magic in an attempt to arrest the external course of nature and to defy necessity; perhaps there came a day when none could understand the inner meaning of the high and far-shining mysteries, and so amidst party strife the building word was lost. Many a man, no doubt, who called himself a "Gnôstic" was but a sorry rogue; many another was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another was but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic in his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into Heaven. But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant idleness and of corruption, the à rebours of a spiritual outpouring, there was a real mysticism that could present the Authentic Spectacle and could utter comfortable words in tongues not of this world utterly. There was a Gnôsis that strove to give the Peace of God to those within and to those without, because in Peace all things were made, that yearned to bring forth children, quickened fiery souls, æons, gods, in bodies of light for the love of God; that saw in all things Grace, the Sponsa Dei, the Mother most pure and immaculate. "No creature was ever wronged of Thee," no spark ever quenched, no hope defrauded and hurled eternally from the sky with shattered wings by Thee. Such is the fair Faith that chanted its prayer beneath a heaven set with such strange galaxies, and whispers to us now through the disremembered symbols of a forgotten book.
It is pleasant, in these days of strife, to be able to quote Dr Schmidt's appreciation of the Untitled Apocalypse with a cordial agreement:
"What a different world, on the contrary, meets us in our thirty-one leaves! We find ourselves in the pure spheres of the highest Plêrôma; we see, step by step, this world, so rich in heavenly beings, coming into existence before our eyes; each individual space with all its inmates is minutely described, so that we can form for ourselves a living picture of the glory and splendour of this Gnôstic heaven. The speculations are not so confused and fantastic as those of the Pistis Sophia and our two Books of Jeu.... The author is imbued with the Greek spirit, equipped with a full knowledge of Greek philosophy, full of the doctrine of the Platonic ideas, an adherent of Plato's view of the origin of evil—that is to say, Hyle.... We possess in these leaves a magnificently conceived work by an old Gnôstic philosopher, and we stand astonished, marvelling at the boldness of the speculations, dazzled by the richness of the thought, touched by the depth of soul of the author. This is not, like the Pistis Sophia, the product of declining Gnôsticism, but dates from a period when Gnôstic genius, like a mighty eagle, left the world behind it and soared in wide and ever wider circles towards pure light, towards pure knowledge, in which it lost itself in ecstasy.
"In one word, we possess in this Gnôstic work, as regards age and contents, a work of the very highest importance, which takes us into a period of Gnôsticism, and therefore of Christianity, of which very little knowledge has been handed down to us."
Finally, I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the scholarship of Mr G. R. S. Mead, whose labours in the field of Hellenistic Theology have to my mind received insufficient recognition, and whose admirable translations I have often used in the notes.
[[1]] Not to be confused with the "astral body" of modern theosophy.
The Gnôsis of the Light
[[1]]This is the Father of all Fathers, the God of all ... Gods, Lord of all Lords, Sonship of all Sons, Saviour of all Saviours, Invisible of all Invisibles, Infinity of all Infinities, Uncontainable of all Uncontainables, Beyond-the-Deep of all Beyond-the-Deeps, Space of all Spaces. This is the Spiritual Mind which existed before all Spiritual Minds, the Holy Place comprehending all Holy Places, the Good comprehending all Goods. This is the Seed of all good things. It is He who has brought them all forth, this Autophues or Being who has produced Himself, who existed before all the beings of the Plêrôma which He Himself has brought forth, Who is in all time. This is that Ingenerable and Eternal One who has no name and who has all names; who was the first to know those of the Universe, who has looked upon those of the Universe, who has heard those of the Universe. He is mightier than all might, upon whose incomprehensible Face no one is able to gaze. Beyond all mind does He exist in His own Form, Solitary and Unknowable. The Universal Mystery is He, the Universal Wisdom, of all things the Beginning. In Him are all Lights, all Life, and all Repose. He is the Beatitude of which all in the Universe are in need, for that they might receive Him they are. All beings of the Universe does He behold within Himself, that One Uncontainable, who parts those of the Universe and receives them all into Himself. Without Him is nothing, for all the worlds exist in Him, and He is the boundary of them all. All of them has He enclosed, for in Him is all. No Space is there without Him, nor any Intelligence; for without that Only One there exists nothing. The Eternities (æons) contemplate His incomprehensibility which is within them all, but understand it not. They wonder at it because He limits them all. They strive towards the City in which is their Image. In this City (1) it is that they move and live [and have their true being]; for it is the House of the Father, the Robe of the Son, and the Power of the Mother, the Image of the Plêrôma. He is the First Father of all things, the First Eternal, the King of those that None can Touch; He in whom all things lose themselves, He who has given all things form within Himself; the Space which has grown from Itself, He who is born of Himself, the Abyss of all being, the Great and True One who is in the Deep; He in whom the Fullnesses (Plêrômata) did come, and even they are silent before Him. They have not named Him, because Unnamable and beyond thought is He, that First Fount whose Eternity stretches through all Spaces, that First Tone (2) whereby all things hearken and understand. He it is whose limbs make a myriad, myriad Powers, and every Power is a being in itself.