It is, however, doubtful whether “Race” is the correct reading in our text; but as it is the clear reading in 15 the above notes are germane to our study. The MS. apparently reads “every Limb.” This again is one of the most general Gnostic mystical terms, and is taken over from the Osiric Mysteries. The Limbs of the God are scattered abroad, and collected together again in the resurrection. The inner meaning of this graphic symbolism may be gleaned from the following striking passages.
In a MS. of the Gnostic Marcus there is a description of the method of symbolizing the Great Body of the Heavenly Man, whereby the twenty-four letters of the Greek alphabet were assigned in pairs to the twelve Limbs. This Body was the symbol of the ideal economy, dispensation or ordering of the universe, its planes, regions, hierarchies, and powers. (F., 366.)
This also is the true Body of man, the Source of all his bodies. And so we read the following mystery-saying in The Gospel of Eve:
“I stood on a lofty mountain and saw a Great Man, and another, a dwarf, and heard as it were a Voice of thunder, and drew nigh for to hear. And He spake unto me and said: ‘I am thou, and thou art I; and wheresoever thou art, I am there, and in all am I sown (or scattered). And whencesoever thou willest, thou gatherest Me; and gathering Me, thou gatherest Thyself.’” (F., 439.)
This is a vision of the Great Person and little person, of the Higher Self and lower self. It may also be interpreted in terms of the Logos and humanity; but it comes nearer home to think of it as the mystery of the individual man—the scattering of the Limbs of the Great Person in the personalities that have been his in many births.
This idea is brought out more clearly in a passage from The Gospel of Philip. It is an apology or defence, as it was called, a formula to be used by the soul in its ascent above, as it passed through the space of the Midst; and for the mystic it is a declaration of the state of a man who is in his last compulsory earth-life.
“I have recognised myself, and gathered myself together from all sides. I have sown no children for the Ruler, but have torn up his roots, and have gathered together my Limbs that were scattered abroad. I know Thee who Thou art; for I am of those from Above.” (Ibid.)
He has sown no children to the Ruler, the Lord of Death; he has not contracted any fresh debt, or created a new form of personality, into which he must again incarnate. But he has torn up the roots of Death, by shattering the form of egoity, and bursting the bonds of Fate. He has gathered together his Limbs, completed the articulation of his Perfect Body.
The Limbs were according to certain orderings, one of which was the configuration of the five-fold Star, the five-limbed Man. Thus in The Acts of Thomas we read:
“Come Thou who art more ancient far than the five holy Limbs—Mind, Thought, Reflection, Thinking, Reasoning! Commune with them of later birth!” (F., 422.)