It was because of these and such like ideas, and in the conviction that the mystery of the crucifixion was to be worked out in every man, that a Gnostic writer, following the Valentinian tradition, explains a famous passage in the Pauline Letter to the Ephesians as follows:
“‘For this cause I bow my knees to the God and Father and Lord of our Lord Jesus Christ, that God may vouchsafe to you that Christ may dwell in your inner man’—that is to say, the psychic and not the bodily man—‘that ye may be strong to know what is the Depth’—that is, the Father of the universals—‘and what is the Breadth’—that is the Cross, the Boundary of the Plērōma [or Fullness]—‘and what is the Greatness’—that is, the Plērōma of the æons [the eternities or universals, the Limbs of the Body of the Ineffable].” (F., 532).
To be closely compared with the Vision in The Acts of John is the Address of Andrew to the Cross in The Acts of Andrew. They both plainly belong to the same tradition, and might indeed have been written by the same hand.
“Rejoicing I come to thee, Thou Cross, the Life-giver, Cross whom I now know to be mine. I know thy mystery; for thou hast been planted in the world to make-fast things unstable.
“Thy head stretcheth up into heaven, that thou mayest symbol-forth the Heavenly Logos, the Head of all things.
“Thy middle parts are stretched forth, as it were hands to right and left, to put to flight the envious and hostile power of the Evil One, that thou mayest gather together into one them [sci., the Limbs] that are scattered abroad.
“Thy foot is set in the earth, sunk in the deep [i.e., abyss], that thou mayest draw up those that lie beneath the earth and are held fast in the regions beneath it, and mayest join them to those in heaven.
“O Cross, engine, most skilfully devised, of Salvation, given unto men by the Highest; O Cross, invincible trophy of the Conquest of Christ o’er His foes; O Cross, thou life-giving tree, roots planted on earth, fruit treasured in heaven; O Cross most venerable, sweet thing and sweet name; O Cross most worshipful, who bearest as grapes the Master, the true vine, who dost bear, too, the Thief as thy fruit, fruitage of faith through confession; thou who bringest the worthy to God through the Gnosis and summonest sinners home through repentance!”
A magnificent address indeed. The identification of the Master and the man with the Cross and in the Cross is hardly disguised. The Cross is the Tree of Life and the tree of death simultaneously. “Give up thy life that thou mayest live,” says that inspired mystic treatise, The Voice of the Silence, and this is no other than the secret of the Mystery of the Cross. The Master is hanged between two thieves, the one repentant and the other obdurate, the soul turned towards the Light and towards the Darkness, all united in the one Mystery of the Cross—the Mystery of Man.
We have seen above that Philip is hanged head downwards, but he is not the most famous instance of this reversal. The best known is associated with the name of Peter in the mystic romances.