Thus in a fragment of the Linus-collection called The Martyrdom of Peter, we learn the doctrine as set forth in a speech put into the mouth of Peter thus crucified:
“Fitly wast Thou alone stretched on the Cross with head on high, O Lord, who hast redeemed all of the world from sin.
“I have desired to imitate Thee in Thy Passion too; yet would I not take on myself to be hanged upright.
“For we, pure men and sinners, are born from Adam, but Thou art God of God, Light of true Light, before all æons and after them; thought worthy to become for men Man without strain of man, Thou has stood forth man’s glorious Saviour—Thou ever upright, ever raised on high, eternally Above!
“We, men according to the flesh, are sons of the First Man (Adam), who sank his being in the earth, whose fall in human generation is shown forth.
“For we are brought to birth in such a way, that we do seem to be poured into earth, so that the right is left, the left doth right become; in that our state is changed in those who are the authors of this life.
“For this world down below doth think the right what is the left—this world in which Thou, Lord, hast found us like the Ninevites, and by Thy holy preaching hast thou rescued these about to die.”
The “authors of this life” of reversal, are the “parents” of the “lower nature”; not our natural parents whom we are to love, but the powers of illusion we are to abandon. The Jonah-myth was used as a type of the Initiate, who after being “three days” in the Belly of the Fish, the Great Life or Animal that dwells in the Ocean or Great Water, is vomited forth re-generate, and so a fit vehicle for preaching with compelling words or acts for the benefit of those in Nineveh or the Jerusalem Below, or this world.
But for those who had ears to hear there was a still further instruction concerning the secret of the Mystic Cross.
“But ye, my brothers, who have the right to hear, lend me the ears of your heart, and understand what now must be revealed to you—the hidden mystery of every nature and secret source of every thing composed.