“For the First Man, whose race I represent by my position, with head reversed, doth symbolize the birth into destruction; for that his birth was death and lacked the Life-stream.
“But of His own compassion the Power Above came down into the world, by means of corporal substance, to him who by a just decree had been cast down into the earth, and hanged upon the Cross, and by the means of this most holy calling [the Cross] He did restore us, and did make for us these present things (which had till then remained unchanged by men’s unrighteous error) into the Left, and those that men had taken for the Left into eternal things.
“In exaltation of the Right He hath changed all the signs into their proper nature, considering as good those thought not good, and those men thought malefic most benign.
“Whence in a mystery the Lord hath said: ‘If ye make not the Right like to the Left, the Left like to the Right, Above as the Below, Before as the Behind, ye shall not know God’s Kingdom.’”
(This saying is from The Gospel according to the Egyptians.)
“This saying have I made manifest in myself, my brothers; this is the way in which your eyes of flesh behold me hanging. It figures forth the Way of the First Man.
“But ye, beloved, hearing these words, and, by conversion of your nature and changing of your life, perfecting them, even as ye have turned you from that Way of Error where ye trod, unto the most sure state of Faith, so keep ye running, and strive towards the Peace that calls you from Above, living the holy life. For that the Way in which ye travel there is Christ.
“Therefore with Jesus, Christ, true God, ascend the Cross. He hath been made for us the One and Only Word; whence also doth the Spirit say: ‘Christ is the Word and Voice of God.’
“The Word in truth is symbolled forth by that straight stem on which I hang. As for the Voice—since that voice is a thing of flesh, with features not to be ascribed unto God’s nature, the cross-piece of the Cross is thought to figure forth that human nature which suffered the fault of change in the First Man, but by the help of God-and-man received again its real Mind.
“Right in the centre, joining twain in one, is set the nail of discipline—conversion and repentance.” (F., 446-449.)