Philo calls it “self-taught,” just as the Buddhists speak of the Arhats as asekha; and the Trismegistic teacher writes:
“This Race, my sons, is never taught; but when He willeth it, its memory is restored by God.” (H., ii., 221.)
The “Elect Race” of Valentinus is the “Sonship” of Basilides that incarnates on earth for the abolition of Death. (F., 303.)
In the Pistis Sophia document, the Sophia, or the soul turning towards the Light, first utters seven repentances, or “turnings-of-the-mind,” or rather of the whole nature. At the fourth of these, the turning-point of some subcycle of the great Return, she prays that the Image of the Light may not be turned or averted from her, for the time is come when “those who turn in the lowest regions” should be regarded—“the mystery which is made the type of the Race.” (F., 471.)
Again in the introduction to The Book of the Great Logos according to the Mystery, the disciples beg the Master to explain the Mystery of the Word. Jesus answers that the Life of His Father consists in their purifying their souls from all earthly stain, and making them to become the Race of the Mind, so that they may be filled with understanding and by His teaching perfect themselves. (F., 528.)
Finally in the marvellous Untitled Apocalypse of the Bruce Codex we read:
“These words said the Lord of the Universe to them, and disappeared from them, and hid Himself from them.
“And the Births-of-matter rejoiced that they had been remembered, and were glad that they had come out of the narrow and difficult place, and prayed to the Hidden Mystery:
“‘Give us authority that we may create for ourselves æons and worlds according to Thy Word, upon which Thou didst agree with Thy servant; for Thou alone art the changeless One, Thou alone the boundless, the uncontainable, self-taught, self-born Self-father; Thou alone art the unshakeable and unknowable; Thou alone art Silence and Love, and Source of all; Thou alone art virgin of matter, spotless; whose Race no man can tell, whose manifestation no man can comprehend.’” (F., 564.)
To understand, man must pass beyond the stage of man, and self-realize himself as “kin to Him”—the Logos.