The Gnostic Crucifixion

by G. R. S. Mead

These five Limbs are also the five Words of the mystery of the Vesture of Light in the Pistis Sophia (p. 16), with which the Christ is clothed in power on the Day of Triumph, the Great Day “Come unto us,” when His Limbs are gathered together and the Song of the Powers begins:

“Come unto us, for we are Thy Fellow-Limbs. We are all one with thee. We are one and the same, and Thou art one and the same.”

In the whole document much is said of the “sweet mysteries that are in the Limbs of the Ineffable,” but it would be too long to repeat it here. It will be perhaps of greater service to append a very striking passage, from The Books of the Saviour, which has been copied into the MS. of the Pistis Sophia (pp. 253, 254):

“And they who are worthy of the Mysteries that dwell in the Ineffable, which are those that have not emanated—these are prior to the First Mystery. To use a similitude and correspondence of speech that ye may understand, they are the Limbs of the Ineffable. And each is according to the dignity of its Glory—the Head according to the dignity of the Head, the Eye according to the dignity of the Eye, the Ear according to the dignity of the Ear, and the rest of the Limbs [in like fashion]; so that the matter is plain: There are many Limbs (Members) but only one Body.

“Of this I have spoken in a plan, a correspondence and similitude, but not in its true form; nor have I revealed the Word in Truth, but as the Mystery of the Ineffable.

“And all the Limbs that are in Him..., that is, they that dwell in the Mystery of the Ineffable, and they that dwell in Him, and also the Three Spaces that follow according to their Mysteries—of all of these in truth and verity am I the Treasure; apart from which there is no Treasure peculiar to [this] cosmos. But there are other Words and Mysteries and Regions [of other worlds].

“Now, therefore, Blessed is he who hath found the Words of the Mysteries of the Space towards the exterior. He is a God who hath found the Words of the Mysteries of the second Space, in the midst. He is a Saviour and free of every space who hath found the Words of the Mysteries of the third Space towards the interior....

“But He, on the other hand, who hath found the Words of the Mysteries which I have set forth for you according to a similitude—namely, the Limbs of the Ineffable—Amēn I say unto you, that man who hath found the Words of those Mysteries in the Truth of God, he is the First in Truth, and like unto Him; for it is through these Words and Mysteries that [all things are made] and the universe itself stands through that First One. Therefore is he who hath found the Words of these Mysteries, like unto the First. For it is the gnosis of the Gnosis of the Ineffable in which I have spoken with you this day.”

It is thus seen that the means used in revealing the manner of the highest Mysteries of the Ineffable was by the similitude of the Limbs or Members of the Body. It, therefore, follows, as we have already seen, that this symbolism was one of the most, if not the most, fundamental in this Gnosis. The three stages of perfectioning are those of the Saint, God and Saviour. But these are still stages in evolution or process, no matter how sublime they be. The fourth or consummation is other; it transcends process, it is ever itself with itself, embracing all processes and all powers simultaneously. But we must not be tempted to comment on this instructive passage, for there is quite enough material in it to develop into a small treatise in itself. For an admirable intuition of the Mystery of the Limbs of the Ineffable, and the meaning of the words “the Head is according to the dignity of the Head,” etc., the reader is referred to the beautiful passage in The Untitled Apocalypse of the Bruce Codex, quoted in the comments on The Hymn of Jesus (pp. 54, 55).

The Gnostic seers lost themselves in the contemplation of the simultaneous simplicity and multiplicity of these Mysteries. Thus again in the same Untitled Apocalypse we read: