The teaching seems to be that as the Christ-story was intended to be the setting-forth of an exemplar of what perfected man might be—namely, that the path was fully opened for him all the way up to God—it was spiritual suicide to rest content with a limited and prejudiced view. Every mould of thought was to be broken, every imperfect conception was to be transcended, if there was to be realization.
For those who cling to the outward forms and symbols the Place of Rest is neither seen nor spoken of. This Place of Rest, this Home of Peace, is in reality the very Cross itself, the Firm Foundation, the that on which the whole creation rests. And if the Place of Rest, where all things cross, and unite, the Mystic Centre of the whole system, which is everywhere, is not seen or spoken of, “much more shall the Lord of it be neither seen nor spoken of”—He who has the power, of the Centre, who can adjust His “centre of gravity” at every moment of time, and therewith the attitude of this Great Body or, if it be preferred, of his Mind, and thus be in perpetual balance, as the Justified and the Just One.
14. The interpretation of the Vision that follows in the text may in its turn be interpreted from several standpoints. It may be regarded cosmicly according to the restauratio omnium, when the whole creation becomes the object of the Great Mercy, as Basilides calls it; or it may be taken soteriologically as referring to the salvation or the making safe or sure of our humanity, or it may be referred to the perfection of the individual man.
The multitude of one appearance are the Earth-bound, the Hylics as the Gnostics called them; that is, those who are immersed in things of matter, the “delights of the world.” They are the Dead, because they are under the sway of birth-and-death, the spheres of Fate. They have not yet “risen from the Dead,” and consciously ascended the Cross of Light and Life.
Thus in the preface to The Book of the Gnoses of the Invisible God, that is to say, “The Book of the Gnosis of Jesus the Living One”—which begins with the beautiful words: “I have loved you and longed to give you Life”—we read the following Saying of the Lord:
“Jesus saith: Blessed is the man who crucifieth the world, and doth not let the world crucify him.”
And later on the mystery is set forth in another Saying:
“Jesus saith: Blessed is the man who knoweth this Word, and hath brought down the Heaven, and borne the Earth and raised it heavenwards; and he becometh the Midst, for it (the Midst) is a ‘nothing.’” (F., 518, 519.)
Those who have become spiritual, who have “risen from the Dead,” are born into the Race of the Logos, they become kin with Him.
Of this Race much has been written by the mystics of the many different schools of these early days.