G R S Mead - Echoes From the Gnosis, Vol 4 Hymn of Yeshua (1906)

7/30/2019 G R S Mead - Echoes From the Gnosis, Vol 4 Hymn of Yeshua (1906)

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THEHYMNOFJESUS

ECHOESFROMTHEGNOSISBYG.R.S.MEAD

VOL. IV.

BT1390.W441906v.4c. 1ROBARTS


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THE .HYMNOF. .JESUS.


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WORKS BY THE SAMEAUTHORNet,THRICE GREATEST HERMES (3 vols.) - 307-FRAGMENTS OF A FAITH FORGOTTEN - 10/6

APOI,IX>NIUS OF TYANA 3/6THE GOSPEL AND THE GOSPELS - - - 4/6DID JESUS IvivE 100 B.C. ? - - - - 9/-PI,OTINUS I/THE UPANISHADS (2 vols.) - - - - 3/-


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ECHOES BYFROM G. R. S.THE MEADGNOSIS VOL. IV

THEHYMNOFJESUS

THE LONDONTHEOSOPHICAL ANDPUBLISHING BENARESSOCIETY 1907


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ECHOES FROM THEGNOSIS.Under this general title is now being published

a series of small volumes, drawn from, or basedupon, the mystic, theosophic and gnostic writingsof the ancients, so as to make more easily audiblefor the ever-widening circle of those who love suchthings, some echoes of the mystic experiences andinitiatory lore of their spiritual ancestry. Thereare many who love the life of the spirit, and wholong for the light of gnostic illumination, but whoare not sufficiently equipped to study the writingsof the ancients at first hand, or to follow unaided the labours of scholars. These little volumesare therefore intended to serve as introductionto the study of the more difficult literature of thesubject ; and it is hoped that at the same timethey may become for some, who have, as yet, noteven heard of the Gnosis, stepping-stones tohigher things.

G. R. S. M.


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THE HYMN OF JESUSCONTENTS

PREAMBLE


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ECHOES FROM THEGNOSISVox,. I. THE GNOSIS OF THE

MIND.VOL. II. THE HYMNS OF HERMES.Vox,. III. THE VISION OF ARID^EUS.Voi,. IV. THE HYMN OF JESUS.SOME PROPOSED SUBJECTSFORFORTHCOMING VOLUMES

A MITHRIAC LITURGY.THE GNOSTIC CRUCIFIXION.THE CHALDJEAN ORACLES.THE HYMN OF THE PRODIGAL.SOME ORPHIC FRAGMENTS.


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THE HYMN OF JESUS.PREAMBLE.

Just as many other settings of theSayings and Doings of the Lord existedprior to and alongside of the canonicalGospels, so were there, prior to and alongside of the subsequently selected orcanonical Acts, many other narrativesprofessing to record the doings andsayings of the Apostles and Disciples ofthe Lord.Most of these originated in circleswhich were subsequently called heretical,and many of them were later on workedover by orthodox editors to suit doctrinal

preconceptions, and so preserved for theedification of large numbers in theCatholic or General Church.As Lipsius says : " Almost every fresh


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HYMN e(*itor * such narratives, using that free-OF dom which all antiquity was wont toJESUS, allow itself in dealing with literary monu

ments, would recast the materials whichlay before him, excluding whatever mightnot suit his theological point of view-dogmatic statements, for example,speeches, prayers, etc., for which hewould substitute other formulae of hisown composition, and further expandingand abridging after his own pleasure, oras the immediate object which he had inview might dictate."Some of these edited and re-editeddocuments, though for the most part theyhave come down to us in a very fragmentary condition, still preserve distincttraces of their Gnostic origin ; andLipsius has shown that their Gnosticismis not to be ascribed to third centuryManichaeism, as had been previouslyassumed by many, but to the generalGnosis of the second century.There was a very wide circulation ofsuch religious romances in the second

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century, for they formed the main means THEof Gnostic public propaganda. OFThe technical inner teachings of Gnostic- JESUS.ism were assailed by the subsequentlyorthodox Church Fathers with misrepresentation and overwhelmed with ridicule.To these onslaughts the Gnostics, asfar as we are aware, made no reply ; mostprobably because they were bound byoaths of secrecy on the one hand, and onthe other knew well that the mysteries ofthe inner life could not be decided byvulgar debate.The mystic teachings of their Gospelwere for those who knew the nature ofthe inner life by direct experience ; forthe rest they were foolishness.Their Acts-romances also appear oftento be based on actual occurrences ofthe inner life and on direct spiritualexperience, subsequently worked up intopopular forms ; the marvellous complexity and baffling sublimity of apocalyptic ecstasy, and the over-abundant andpregnant technology which delighted the

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HYMN members * tne mner circles of theOF Gnostic Christians, were excluded, andJESUS, all was reduced to simpler terms.These marvellous narratives may seem

vastly fantastic to the modern mind, butto every shade of Christianity in thosedays, they were entirely credible. Theorthodox did not repudiate the marvellousnature of the narratives ; what theyopposed with such bitterness was thedoctrinal implications with which theywere involved.

These Acts-romances thus formed theintermediate link between the GeneralChurch and the inner teachings of Gnosticism, and they were so popular that theycould not be disposed of by ridiculesimply. Another method had to beused.To quote from Lipsius again : "Catholicbishops and teachers knew not how betterto stem this flood of Gnostic writings andtheir influence among the faithful, thanby boldly adopting the most popularnarratives from the heretical books, and,

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after carefully eliminating the poison offalse doctrine, replacing them in this Fpurified form in the hands of the public." JESUS.

Fortunately for some of us, this " purification " has not been complete, andsome of the " poison of false doctrine "has thus been preserved. Among otherthings of great beauty for which we aregrateful, we especially thank a kindlyprovidence for the preservation of theHymn of Jesus.The earliest collection of these GnosticActs is said to have been made by acertain Leucius, surnamed Charinus.There is a tradition, though of somewhatdoubtful authenticity, that this Leuciuswas a disciple of John. If we accept itat all, this John must be taken for thewriter of the Fourth Gospel, and not theJohn of the original Twelve.

It would be impossible here to enterinto any discussion of the baffling Johan-nine problem ; those of our readers, however, who are interested in the manifestGnostic implications with which this

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THE problem is involved as far as it relates to0/M the Fourth Gospel, should read Kreyen-JESUS. buhl s exhaustive and instructive studyDas Evangelium der Wahrheit (Berlin ;

1900, 1905). His " new solution of theJohannine question," which Kreyenbiihlentitles "The Gospel of the Truth,"boldly claims an immediate Gnostic originfor the Fourth Gospel ; and this courageouspioneer of a new way even goes so far asto contend that the writer of what isindubitably the most spiritual of all theGospels, was no other than Maenander,the teacher of Basilides. It is instructiveto remark that this voluminous and important work has been passed over withcomplete silence in this country.At any rate the Leucian Acts wereearly ; in the opinion of Zahn this collection was made at a time when the Gnosticswere not yet considered heretical, that isto say prior to 150 A.D. say 130 A.D.

Lipsius on the other hand places themin the second half of the second century,towards the end, and so does Hennecke.

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This maximum of date they are compelledto concede, because Clement of Alexandria OFat the end of the second century quotes JESUS.from the Gnostic Acts of John whichindubitably formed part of the Leuciancollection.The controversy between Lipsius andZahn was conditioned by the fact that

they both agreed that the Acts of Johnquote from the Fourth Gospel. Zahnplaced this Gospel earlier in date thanLipsius and was anxious to find in theActs an early witness to that Gospel,indeed the earliest witness.

It has, however, been strongly contestedby Corssen whether the Acts quote fromthe Gospel ; and as far as I can myselfsee from the passages adduced, there doesnot seem to be absolute evidence of anydirect quotation. There is indubitably aclose similarity of diction, as is so oftenthe case in similar problems concerningnearly contemporary documents ; but theproblem is more easily satisfied by considering the writers as belonging to the


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HYMN same circle* than by seeking to proveOF direct literary plagiarism.JESUS. However this may be, we are not to

suppose that Leucius invented the Acts ;he collected and adapted and wrote upthe material. If he had invented all ofit, he would have been a genius of nomean order.

Leucius has a style of his own, and healso moved in a certain sweet atmospherethat is characteristic of the best in theJohannine tradition the tradition of love,and intimacy, and simplicity ; very different, for instance, from the more formalPauline atmosphere.The Acts of John are indubitablyLeucian, and judging by literary style soare the Acts of Peter. As to the rest ofthe Acts of the original Leucian collection,there is at present no certainty, and thoseassigned to Leucius by later writers mustbe put on one side as far as their presentremains are concerned.

It has been surmised by James that asLuke (Loukas) wrote the Orthodox Acts,16


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the writer who wrote the Gnostic Actscalled himself Leucius (Leukios) to suggest OFhe was one and the same person ; but JESUS,this I consider highly improbable. TheGnostics are in general inventors and notcopyists.

It is also of interest to note that Zahnconsiders that the account of the genesisof the Fourth Gospel given by the writerof the Muratorian Fragment (c. 170 A.D.)was taken from the Leucian Acts. ThisGospel is there said to have been writtenby a certain John, who was " of theDisciples." His " fellow-disciples andbishops

"

had apparently urged him towrite a Gospel, but John hesitated toaccept the responsibility, and proposedthat they should all fast together forthree days, and tell one another if anything was revealed to them. On the samenight it is revealed to Andrew, who is" of the Apostles," that while all revisedJohn should write down all things in hisown name.

If this information is taken from the17


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HYMN Leucian Acts, it follows of course thatOF their writer was acquainted with theJESUS. Fourth Gospel. If we take this as certain

though from the adduced parallelphrases alone I cannot myself be quitecertain then the question arises howcould Leucius have put into the mouth ofJohn doctrines which are opposed to theteaching of the Gospel ? To this questionJames gives the following answer :

" His notion is that St. John wrote forthe multitude certain comparatively plainand easy episodes in the life of the Lord :but that to the inner circle of the faithfulhis teaching was widely different. Inthe Gospel and Epistles we have his exoteric teaching : in the Acts his esoteric."This of course exactly reverses therelation that Corssen supposes to haveexisted between the Acts and Gospel ;namely that the author of the Acts didnot know the Gospel at all.

It is of course the general Gnosticposition that all true scripture had anunder-meaning. The gospel-narratives

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were written for the people, but at thesame time in such a fashion as to setforth allegorically the mysteries. JESUS.

If, then, any propaganda of thesehidden mysteries was to be attempted in aless veiled form, it follows that a morespiritual standpoint had to be insistedon ; and the popular narrative which wasgenerally taken in a physical and materialsense, was replaced by a more plastic andsuggestive setting and exposition.But we may ask, at any rate in thecase of the Fourth Gospel was it theGospel-narrative that was prior in date,and the Gnostic re-writing of Gospel-incidents subsequent ; or was it thatthe Gnostic ideas existed prior to thewriting of the Gospel, and the matter incorporated into the Gnostic Acts deriveddirectly from the same body of ideas thatinspired the Gospel ?As it is now proved beyond all questionthat the Gnosis was pre-Christian, andthat in what is generally called Gnosticismwe are dealing with a Christianized

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HVMM Gnosis which demonstrably existed inop the time of Paul, and which Paul foundJESUS, already existing in the Churches, we mustconclude that there is nothing inherentlyimprobable in the latter alternative.

Moreover, the Gnosticism of the Actsof John is general and simple and cannotbe assigned to this or that particularschool of the Christian Gnosis.The marvellous and beautiful Hymn,which is the subject of this small volume,

is found in what are without doubtthe Leucian A cts of John. That, however,Leucius himself composed the Hymn isby no means to be taken for granted.Leucius was a collector and redactor heused sources ; and I have myself nodoubt that the Hymn existed in Gnosticcircles prior to the composition of theActs indeed, that it was a most preciousdocument.The first external testimony to ourHymn is found in its use by the Pris-cillianists, in Spain, in the last third of

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the fourth century. The great movementknown under the name of Priscillianism OFwas a powerful revival of Gnosticism and JESUS.Oriental mysticism and theosophy whichpoured over the Peninsula.The views of the Priscillianists onscripture were those of the rest of theGnostics in general ; their canon wascatholic in the widest meaning of the term.Just as the Jewish scriptures were animperfect revelation as compared with thegeneral Christian books, so were thepopular scriptures of Christianity imperfect in comparison with the revelationsof the Gnosis.As the Old Covenant books were considered to be replete with types andfigures, images and shadows of the Gospel-teaching, so were the books of the NewTestament, in their turn, held to befigurative and symbolical of the innerteachings of the Gnosis. The former wereintended for those of Faith, the latter forthose in Gnosis.

Against this view Augustine and Jerome21


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THE waged remorseless war ; for the countryop was flooded with an immense number ofJESUS. Gnostic documents. The Priscillianistswere persecuted and martyred and themain care of the orthodox bishops was to

seize their books and destroy them.Ceretius, one of the bishops presumably,

had sent Augustine some of the books ofthese Gnostics ; he himself seems to havebeen inclined to approve them. Augustine, in his answer, picks out for detailedcriticism one document only our Hymn.Concerning this he writes :

" As for the Hymn which they say isthat of our Lord Jesus Christ, and whichhas so greatly aroused your veneration, itis usually found in apocryphal writings,not peculiar to the Priscillianists but usedby other heretics."

Augustine adds a quotation, from theintroduction of the Gnostic M.S. of theHymn, which runs :

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"The Hymn of the Lord which Hesang in secret to the holy Apostles, His OFdisciples, for it is said in the Gospel : JESUS.And after singing a hymn He ascendedthe mount. This Hymn is not put inthe canon, because of those who thinkaccording to themselves, and not according

to the Spirit and Truth of God, andthat it is written : It is good to hidethe sacrament of the King ; but it ishonourable to reveal the works of God.The Gospel referred to cannot be eitherMatthew (xxvi. 31) or Mark (xiv. 26),

both of which read : " And after singinga hymn they went out to the Mount ofOlives." The second quotation I amunable to trace.An important point which will concernus later on is that Ceretius found theHymn by itself and not in its context inthe Acts ; it was in all probabilityextracted for liturgical purposes.

It is, moreover, evident from whatAugustine writes in the first passage we

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HYMN have quoted that the Hymn was well-OF known in Gnostic circles.JESUS. It would also seem as though Augustine,who wrote in Latin, was dealing with aLatin translation, rather than that he

translated the quotation himself in hisanswer to Ceretius.Part only of the Greek text of thisfamous Hymn was known prior to 1899,when James published a hitherto unknownand very important fragment of the Acts

of John, found in a fourteenth centuryM.S., in the Vienna Imperial Library.This contained what seems to be thefull text of our Hymn, though, unfortunately, copied by a sometimes verycareless scribe. Nearly the whole of thislengthy fragment consists of a monologueput into the mouth of John, and in it wehave preserved to us a very remarkabletradition of the Gnostic side of the lifeof the Master ; or, if it be preferred, ofincidents in the "occult" life of Jesus.The whole setting of the christology iswhat is called " docetic." Our fragment

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is thus a most valuable addition to ourknowledge of Docetism, and at last gives OFus a satisfactory reason why this view JESUS.was held so widely by the Gnostics.Indeed it is now the most importantsource we possess, and puts the wholequestion on a different footing. In futureour fragment must always be taken firstas the locus classicus in any discussion ofthe question.Docetism was a theory which found itsconfirmation in narratives and legends ofcertain psychic or spiritual powers ascribedto the " perfect man."The christological and soteriologicaltheories of the Gnostic philosophers werenot, as many would have us believe,invented altogether d priori ; they rested,I hold, on the basis of a veritable historicalfact, which has for the most part beenobscured out of all recognition by theflood of physical objective historicizingnarratives of the origins.

After His death, I believe, as many aGnostic tradition claims, the Christ did

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THE return and teach His disciples and trueQpMN

lovers in the inner circles, and this factJESUS, which was made known to their consciousness in many marvellous ways, was to alarge extent the origin of the proteanGnostic tradition of an inner instruction.He returned in the only way He couldreturn in this way of return namely, ina subtle or " spiritual " mode or " body."This " body " could be made visible atwill, could even be made sensible to touch,but was, compared with the normallyobjective physical body, an " illusory "body hence the term " docetic."But just as the external tradition ofthose who are considered the original

Jewish Christians, the Ebionim (or Poor),was gradually transmuted and sublimated,so that it, finally, exalted Jesus from thestatus of a simple prophet in which itoriginally regarded him, unto the fullPower and Glory of Godhead itself ;so the internal tradition extended thedoubtlessly simple original doceticnotion to every department of the huge

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soteriological structure raised by Gnostic THE ^genius. OFThe Leucian Acts of John pertain to the JESUS,latter stream of tendencies, and " John "is the personification, so to say, of one ofthe lines of tradition of that proteanDocetism, which had its origin in one ofthe best-known and most important factsof the spiritual life, or of

"

occult"

experience, and of those marvellous teachings of initiation which became subsequently historicized or woven into historicsettings, and which " John " in ourfragment, sums up in the words :

" I held firmly this one thing in myself,that the Lord contrived all things symbolically and by a dispensation towardsmen, for their conversion and salvation."That is to say, that all truly inspired

narratives of the Doings and Sayings ofthe Christ are typical ; or again, that Hewho is Christ, in all He does and says, asChrist, acts with the Cosmic Order. This

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WVMM is His " economy " and " ministry "OF the doinS of His " Father s business."JESUS. We will now turn to the Hymn itself,and first give a version of it from Bonnet s

text. In the newly-recovered fragment itis introduced as follows :

"Now before He was taken by thelawless Jews by them who are underthe law of the lawless Serpent Hegathered us together and said :

Before I am delivered over untothem we will hymn the Father, and sogo forth to what lieth before [us]." Then bidding us make as it were a

ring, by holding each others hands, withHim in the midst, He said :" Answer " Amen " to Me." Then He began to hymn a hymn and

say :28


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THE HYMN.Glory to Thee, Father ! THEHYMNOF(And we going round in a ring answered JESUS.

to Him :)Amen !Glory to Thee, Word (Logos) !Amen !Glory to Thee, Grace (Charts) !Amen !Glory to Thee, Spirit !Glory to Thee, Holy One !Glory to Thy Glory !Amen !

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We Praise Thee & Father ;OF We give Thanks to Thee, O Light ;JESUS. In Whom Darkness dwells not !

Amen !(For what we give thanks to the Logos).[Or, if we adopt the " emended " text :For what we give thanks, I say :]I would be saved ; and I would save.Amen !I would be loosed ; and I would loose.Amen !I would be wounded ; and I wouldwound.[Or, I would be pierced ; and I would

pierce.30


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Another reading has : HYMNI would be dissolved (or consumed for OF

love) ; and I would dissolve.] JESUS.Amen !I would be begotten ; and I would

beget.Amen !I would eat ; and I would be eateAmen !I would hear ; and I would be heard.Amen ![I would understand ; and] I would beunderstood ; being all Understanding

(Nous).

[The first clause I have supplied ; thelast is probably a gloss.]


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I would be washed ; and I wouldwash.JESUS. Amen !

(Grace leadeth the dance.)I would pipe ; dance ye all.Amen !I would play a dirge ; lament ye all.Amen !The one Eight (Ogdoad) sounds (or

plays) with us.Amen !The Twelfth Number above leadeththe dance.Amen !

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All whose nature is to dance [doth _ _-, riYIVINdance]. OF

JESUS.Amen !Who danceth not, knows not what is

being done.

Amen !I would flee ; and I would stay.Amen !I would be adorned ; and I would

adorn.

[The clauses are reversed in the text.]Amen !I would be at-oned ; and I would at-one.Amen !

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* nave no dwelling ; and I have dwel-HYMN iOF lm s -JESUS. Amen !

I have no place ; and I have places.Amen !I have no temple ; and I have temples.Amen !I am a lamp to thee who seest Me.Amen !I am a mirror to thee who under-

standest Me.Amen !I am a door to thee who knockest at Me.Amen !

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I am a way to thee a wayfarer. HYMNOFJESUS.Amen !

Now answer to My dancing !See thyself in Me who speak ;And seeing what I do,Keep silence on My Mysteries.Understand, by dancing, what I do ;For thine is the Passion of ManThat I am to suffer.

Thou couldst not at all be consciousOf what thou dost suffer,Were I not sent as thy Word by theFather.[The last clause may be emended :I am thy Word ; I was sent by the Father.]Seeing what I suffer,

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Thou sawest Me as suffering ;OF And seeing, thou didst not stand,JESUS. But wast moved wholly,Moved to be wise.

Thou hast Me for a couch ; rest thouupon Me.

Who I am thou shalt know when Idepart.What now I am seen to be, that I amnot.

[But what I am] thou shalt see whenthou comest.If thou hadst known how to suffer,Thou wouldst have power not to suffer.Know [then] how to suffer, and thouhast power not to suffer.That which thou knowest not, I Myself

will teach thee.

I am thy God, not the Betrayer s.


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I would be kept in time with holy souls. THEOFIn Me know thou the Word of Wisdom. JESUS.

Say thou to Me again :Glory to Thee, Father !Glory to Thee, Word !Glory to Thee, Holy Spirit !

But as for Me, if thou wouldst knowwhat I was :In a word I am the Word who did play[or dance] all things, and was not shamed

at all.Twas I who leaped [and danced].But do thou understand all, and, under

standing, say :

Glory to Thee, Father !Amen !

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THE (And having danced these thingswith

P MN us, Beloved, the Lord went forth. AndJESUS, we, as though beside ourselves, or wakenedout of [deep] sleep, fled each our several

ways.)


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COMMENTS.To me it seems almost certain, as I THE

argued in the first edition of Fragments QpMN

of a Faith Forgotten, in 1900, that this JESUS.Hymn is no hymn, but a mystery-ritual,and perhaps the earliest Christian ritualof which we have any trace.We have a number of such mystery-rituals in the Coptic Gnostic works inthe extract from the " Books of theSaviour " appended to the so-called PistisSophia document of the Askew Codex,and in the " Two Books of leou " ofthe Bruce Codex.

In a number of passages the Disciplesare bidden to " surround " (that is, joinhands round) the Master at certain praise-givings and invocations of the Father,who is addressed as : " Father of allFatherhood, Boundless Light " just as

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THE the Father is hymned as Light in theop last three lines of our opening doxology.JESUS. The " Second Book of leou " ends witha long praise-giving, in the inner spaces ;

for these highly mystical treatises dealwith the instruction of the Disciples bythe Master out of the body. This praise-giving begins as follows (Carl Schmidt,Gnost. Schrift. . . . am d. Codex Bruci-anus Leipzig, 1892 pp. 187 ff.) :

" And He spake unto them, the Twelve :Surround Me all of you !And they all surrounded Him. Hesaid unto them :Answer to Me [Amen], and sing praisewith Me ; and I will praise My Father for

the Emanation of all Treasures.And He began to sing a hymn, praisingHis Father, and saying :I praise Thee . . . ; for Thou hastdrawn Thyself unto Thyself altogether in

Truth, till Thou hast set free the space ofthis Little Idea [? the Cosmos] ; yet hastThou not withdrawn Thyself. For what

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now is Thy Will, O Unapproachable THE^God ? OFThereon He made His Disciples answer JESUS.three times : Amen, Amen, Amen ! "As far as I can discover from the most

recent works of reference, " Amen " isconsidered by scholars to be a pureHebrew word. It is said to have beenoriginally an adjective signifying " stability,"

" firmness,""

certainty," whichsubsequently became an interjection, usedfirst of all in conversation, and thenrestricted to the most solemn form ofasseveration ; as, for instance, in oaths,and, in the temple ritual, in the responsesof the congregation to the doxologies andsolemn utterances of the priests andreaders.

According to the Portuguese reading ofthe vowels it is pronounced Amen (thevowels as in Italian). The Greek transliteration is Amen.

In Revelation (iii. 14), Christ is calledthe Amen : " These things saith the


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THE Amen, the faithful and true Witness."HYMN ^ye are to^ tkat ^n tke great synagogueJESUS, at Alexandria, at the conclusion of the

reader s doxology, the attendant signalledwith a flag for the congregation to respondAmen.This use of this sacred utterance was

taken over by the Christian churches ; sothat we find Jerome writing : " Like untocelestial thunder the Amen re-echoes."

It is \vell known that Hebrew andAramaic are exceedingly rich in loanwords from other languages. I have,however, never seen it yet suggested thatAmen may be a loan-word. I would now.with all submission to Hebraist specialists, make this suggestion, for Plutarch inhis treatise On Isis and Osiris writes(ix. 4) :

" Moreover, while the majority thinkthat the proper name of Zeus with theEgyptians is Amoun (which we by a slightchange call Ammon), Manetho, the Seben-nyte, considers it His hidden one, and

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that His power of hiding is made plain by ^^the very articulation of the sound. OF

Hecateus of Abdera, however, says JESUS,that the Egyptians use this word to oneanother also" when they call one to them,for that its sound has got the power ofcalling to.Wherefore when they call to the FirstGod who they think "is the same for

every man as unto the Unmanifest andHidden, invoking Him to make Himmanifest and plain to them, they sayAmoun! "

Ammon or Amoun is usually transliterated directly from the hieroglyphics asAmen. We thus learn that in EgyptAmen was a u word of power," indeed thechief M word of power " in general theurgicuse.We cannot suppose that Hecataeus, inhis History of Egypt, intended us tounderstand that the Egyptians shouted iafter one another in the street. It was

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HYMN rather used as a word f magic, for evokingOF the Ka of a person, or as the chiefest ofJESUS, all invocations to the Invisible Deity.The exact parallel is to be found to-dayin the use of the " Word of Glory " (the

Pranava), Om or Aum, in India.The sacred dancing was common to all

great mystery-ceremonies. Here it willbe sufficient to quote from what Philo ofAlexandria, in the first quarter of ourera, tells us, in his famous treatise On theContemplative Life, about the sacreddances of the Therapeuts or " Servantsof God." He writes :

" Then the president rising chants ahymn which has been made in God shonour, either a new one which he hascomposed, or an old one of the ancientpoets.

" For they have left behind them manymetres and tunes in trimetric epics,processional hymns, libation-odes, altar-

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chants, stationary choruses, and dance-songs, all admirably measured off in OFdiversified strains. JESUS.

" And after him the others also, inbands, in proper order, take up thechanting, while the rest listen in deepsilence, except when they have to joinin the burden and refrains ; for they all,both men and women, join in. ..." After the banquet they keep the holyall-night festival. And this is how it iskept :

" They all stand up in a body ; andabout the middle of the ceremony theyfirst of all separate into two bands, menin one and women in the other. And aleader is chosen for each, the conductorwhose reputation is greatest and the onemost suitable for the post.

" They then chant hymns made inGod s honour, in many metres andmelodies ; sometimes singing in chorus,sometimes one band beating time to theanswering chant of the other, now dancingto its music, now inspiring it, at one time

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TYMN m Processi na^ hymns, at another inOF standing songs, turning and returning inJESUS, the dance.

" Then when each band has feasted[that is, has sung and danced] apart byitself, drinking of God-pleasing nectar,just as in the Bacchic rites men drink thewine unmixed, they join together, andone chorus is formed of the two bands. . ." So the chorus of men and womenTherapeuts . . . , by means of melodiesin parts and harmony the high notes ofthe women answering to the deep tonesof the men produces a harmonious andmost musical symphony. The ideas areof the most beautiful, the expressions ofthe most beautiful, and the dancersreverent ; while the goal of the ideas,expressions, and dancers is piety.

" Thus drunken unto morning s lightwith this fair drunkenness, with no head-heaviness or drowsiness, but with eyesand body fresher even than when theycame to the banquet, they take theirstand at dawn, when, catching sight of

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the rising sun, they raise their hands toheaven, praying for Sunlight and Truth, Fand keenness of Spiritual Vision." JESUS.And now we will turn to the text of

our Hymn, which pertains to a stillhigher mystery, first of all dealing withthe introductory words of the writer ofthe Acts.The " lawless Jews " refers to thosewho are " under the law of the lawless

Serpent " ; that is to say, those who areunder the sway of Generation as contrasted with those who are under the lawof Regeneration, of carnal birth as opposedto spiritual birth ; or again, of the Lesseras contrasted with the Greater Mysteries.As the pre-Christian Greek redactorof the Naassene Document phrases it(T.G.H., i. 162) :

"For He [the Great Man, the Logos,the Serpent of Wisdom] is Ocean birth-causing of gods and birth-causing of men

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THE flowing and ebbing for ever, now upQ and now down."JESUS. And on this the early Jewish commentator remarks :

" When Ocean flows down, it is thebirth-causing of men ; and when Heflows up, ... it is the birth-causingof gods."And further on he adds :" This is the Great Jordan, which

flowing downwards and preventing theSons of Israel from going forth out ofEgypt, or from the Intercourse Below,was turned back by Jesus [LXX. forJoshua] and made to flow upwards."

This one and the same Serpent was thuseither the Agathodaimon (or Good Spirit)or the Kakodaimon (or Evil Spirit),according to the will of man. The regenerated or perfected man, the man of


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repentance, he who has turned Home-wards, or has his "face" set Above, whose OFwill is being at-oned with the Divine Will, JESUS,turns the waters of Ocean upwards, andthus gives birth to himself as a god.The doxology of our Hymn is triadic

Father, Son, Mother.Charis, Grace or Love, is Wisdom, orGod s Good-Will, the Holy Spirit, orGreat Breath ; that is, the Power and

Spouse of Deity.The order of the triple praise-giving isthen reversed : Mother, Son, Father ; forGlory is the Great Presence, the Father.And finally there is a trinity in unity,Praise being given to the Father as Light ;the same as the oft-recurring invocationin the Coptic Gnostic works : " Father ofall Fatherhood, Boundless Light ! "

The doxology being ended, we come toa striking series of double clauses orantitheses. I at once submit that thesewere not originally intended to be uttered

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HYMN ^7 one and tne same person. On theOF contrary they are evidently amoebaean ;JESUS, that is, answering as in a dialogue. Norwere they addressed to the Disciples ;there was some single person for whomthe whole was intended, and to whommuch of it is addressed.

If, then, we have before us not a hymn,but the remains of a mystery-ritual, theremust have been two people in the circle.One of them was the Master, the Initiator.Who was the other ? Manifestly, the oneto be initiated.Now the ultimate end of all Gnosis wasthe at-one-ment or union of the little manwith the Great Man, of the human soulwith the Divine Soul.

In the great Wisdom-myth, the humansoul was regarded as the " lost sheep,"the erring and suffering Sophia fallen intogeneration, from which she was saved bythe Christ, her true Lord and Spouse.On the side of the Great Descent wehave the most wonderful attempts madeby the Gnostics to pierce the veil of the

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mysteries of cosmogony to catch someglimpse of how the Cosmos came into gpexistence, and was fashioned by the JESUS,creative power of the Logos, the SupernalChrist. This was called the " enforma-tion according to substance " the " substance " being the Sophia or WisdomHerself as viewed in Her self-isolationfrom the Pleroma or Fullness of DivineBeing, the Transcendent Presence.On the way of the Great Ascent orReturn, the Gnosis attempted to raisethe veil of the mysteries of soteriology,or of the rescue of the separated humansoul, and its restoration to the Bosom ofthe Divine. This was called the " en-formation according to gnosis " that is,Self-consciousness.The duologue is therefore carried on

by those who are acting out the mysteryof the Sophia and the Christ ; though weshould never forget that they are inreality or essentially one and the samePerson, the lower and higher self in thePresence of the Great Self.


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HYMN ^^e twe*ve disciples are the represen-OF tatives of the powers of the Master, sentJESUS, forth (apostles) into the outer worlds,

corresponding with the Great Twelve ofthe Presence, the Twelve Above ; andthey dance to the dancing or cosmicmotions of the Twelve, even as thecandidate, or neophyte, the Sophia below,dances to the cosmic motion of the Charisor Grace or Sophia Above.And if this rite be duly consummated,the Presence that enwraps the doers of themystery is Divine. The Presence is thatof the Father Himself, who has no humanform, but is as it were a " Heart," or"

Head," a " Face," a Shekinah or Glory.How the seers of the Gnosis conceivedthis marvel of the Godhead may perhapsbe seized dimly in the following passagesfrom the " Untitled Apocalypse " of theBruce Codex (F.F.F., p. 548) :

" The Outline of His Face is beyondall possibility of knowing in the OuterWorlds those Worlds that ever seek His

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Face, desiring to know it ; for His Wordhas gone forth into them, and they long Fto see Him. JESUS.

" The Light of His Eyes penetrates theSpaces of the Outer Pleroma ; and theWord that comes forth from His Mouthpenetrates the Above and the Below.

" The Hair of His Head is the numberof the Hidden Worlds, and the Outline ofHis Face is the type of the JEons [i.e.,Perfect Spheres and Eternities].

" The Hairs of His Face are the numberof the Outer Worlds, and the Outspreadingof His Hands is the manifestation of theCross. . . .The Source of the Cross is the Man[Logos] whom no man can comprehend.

" He is the Father ; He is the Sourcefrom which the Silence [the Mother of theJEons] wells."And as to the consummation of at-one-ment and the state of him who makes

joyful surrender of himself unto thePowers, "and thus becoming Powers he

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THE is in God," as Poemandres teaches, someop intuition may be gleaned from the sameJESUS, document which tells of the Host of

Powers, " having wreaths (or crowns) ontheir heads " that is ^Eons or Christs orMasters crowned with their Twelve Powers,and all the other orderings of spiritualenergies (F.F.F., p. 556) :

" Their Crowns send forth Rays. TheBrilliancy of Their Bodies is as the Lifeof the Space into which They are come.

" The Word (Logos) that comes out ofTheir Mouth is Eternal Life ; and theLight that comes forth from Their Eyesis Rest for Them.

" The Movement of Their Hands isTheir Flight to the Space out of whichThey are come ; and Their Gazing onTheir own Faces is Gnosis of Themselves.

" The Going to Themselves is a repeatedReturn ; and the Stretching forth ofTheir Hands establishes Them." The Hearing of Their Ears is the

Perception in Their Heart ; and the54


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Union of Their Limbs is the Ingathering, _. .of Israel. OF" Their Holding to one another is Their JESUS.Fortification in the Logos."

All this is doubtless " foolishness " tomany but it is Light and Life and Wisdomfor some few, who would strive towards becoming the Many in One, and One in Many.But to the somewhat lesser mysteries ofour ritual. All the terms must, I think,be interpreted as mystery-words ; theycontained for the Gnostics a wealth ofmeaning, which differed for each accordingto his understanding and experience. If,then, I venture on any suggestions ofmeaning, it should be understood thatthey are but tentative and ephemeral,and as it were only rough notes in pencilin the margin that may be rubbed outand emended by every one according tohis knowledge and preference.

" I would be saved."The human soul is " wandering in the

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THE labyrinth of ills," as the Naassene HymnoJMN has it (T.G.H., i. 191) ; is being swirledJESUS, about by the "fierce flood" of Ignorance

as the Preacher, in one of the Trismegisticsermons, phrases it (T.G.H., ii. 120).The soul is being swirled about in theOcean of Genesis, in the Spheres of Fate.She prays for safety, for that state ofstability which is attained when the worldsof swirl in the Magna Vorago, or GreatWhirlpool, to use a term of the Orphictradition, are transcended, by means ofat-one-ment with the Great Stability, theLogos " He who stands, has stood andwill stand," as the Simonian Great Announcement calls Him.

In its beginnings this safety expressesneither motion nor stability, but a ceasingfrom agitation ; the mind or anxiety isno longer within the movement, theProcession of Fate.The tempest-tossed self cries out to bedrawn apart from the swirl ; while theother self that is not in the swirl would

like to enter.56


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The self within, or subject to, thedownward

"

elements has to unite with OFthe self of the " upward " elements in JESUS.order to be saved from the swirling of thepassions ; while the " higher " self has tobe drawn into the " lower," so to say, andunite with it, in order to be " saved "from the incapacity of self-expression.

" I would be loosed."That is, loosed from the bonds of Fateand Genesis. In some of the rites the

candidate was bound with a rope. InEgypt the rope symbolized a serpent, theTyphonic

"

loud-breathing serpent"

ofthe passions, as the " Hymn of the Soul "of Bardaisan calls it (F.F.F., p. 477).

** I would be wounded."Or " I would be pierced." This

suggests the entrance of the ray of thehigher self into the heart whereby the" knot in the heart," as the Upanishadsphrase it, may be unloosed, or dissolved,or in order that the lower self may receive

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THE the divine radiance of the higher. ThisOF interpretation is borne out by the alterna-JESUS. tive reading from a Latin translation,which may have originated in a gloss byone who knew the mystery, for he writes :

" I would be dissolved " ; that is, " consumed by love."And so we continue with the mysteriesof this truly " Sacred Marriage," or" Spiritual Union," as it was called.

" I would be begotten."This is the Mystery of the ImmaculateConception, or Self-birth. " I would bebegotten " as a Christ, the New Man, orTrue Man, who is in verity the Alone-begotten that is, Begotten-from-Himself-alone, or Self-begotten.

" I would eat."By

"

eating,"food and eater become

one. The Logos is called the " Bread ofLife " ; that is, the Super-substantialBread, one of the Elements of the Eucharist. The soul desires to " eat " the Life

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in everything ; this expresses how thesoul must become everything before it QFcan enjoy cosmic consciousness, and be JESUS,nourished by the Life in all.So is it that men can become part ofthe Cosmos through right action. Butto reach this consummation we must nolonger long to live and act our little life,but rather to be, if one may so phrase it,in our turn " eaten " ; that is to say, tohave our own self-will eaten out of us.And then our fate or life or activity becomes part of the Great Records, and theman becomes a Living Oracle or Drama, aChrist. All Life then becomes a happening with meaning ; but this can never beuntil the man surrenders his self-will andbecomes one with the Great Will.

This " eating " signifies a very intimatekind of union, in which the life of a manbecomes part of a Great Life." I would hear."It is to be remarked that there is no

" I would see." If we can legitimately59


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iay any stress on this, it is presumablyOF because the candidate is already "seeing";JESUS, he has already reached the " epopt "

stage, and therefore this " hearing " isbeyond the probationary stage of " hearing " or of the " mystes."

Hearing is much more cosmic or" greater " than seeing, as we learn lateron from our fragment, in the Vision of theCross, where John " sees the Lord Himselfabove the Cross, not having any shape,but only a voice."In such hearing the hearer draws nighunto the Root-sound, or Breath (Atman),which creates all that it is possible to see.To see there must be form, even if theform is only an idea.

Again, hearing may be said to be theverb of action when power is being conveyed to a person ; while seeing is theverb of action of that person after receiving the power.

" I would understand."This recalls the idea of " standing,"

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"

stability." Plato attributes this under- Nstanding to the Sphere of Sameness (the OFEighth), in this, I believe, handing on an JESUS,echo from Egypt. It is by means of thisstability of the true mind that consciousness is enabled to link on the happeningsin the whirling spheres, or whorls, of Fateto the Great Things or Things-that-are,and so perceive greater soul-records inphenomena. The last clause is evidentlya gloss, but by a knowing scribe. TheLogos is the true Understanding or Mind(Nous).

" I would be washed."That is, I would be baptized, or immersed wholly in the Ocean of LivingWater, the Great Oneness. It may mean

simply " I would be purified." But thefull rite of baptism was immersion andnot sprinkling ; as Thrice-greatest Hermessays in the sermon " The Cup," or " TheMonad " (T.G.H., ii. 86) :

" He filled a Mighty Cup (Krater) with61


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THE it (Mind), and sent it down, joining aop Herald to it, to whom He gave commandJESUS, to make this proclamation to the hearts

of men :" * Baptize thyself with this Cup s bap

tism, what heart can do so, thou whohast faith thou canst ascend to Him Whohath sent down the Cup, thou who dostknow for what thou didst come intobeing !

" As many then as understand theHerald s tidings and dowsed themselves inMind, became partakers in the Gnosis ;and when they had received the Mindthey were made perfect men.The Cup is perchance the Presence

substantially." Grace leadeth the dance."In the text this has the next sentence

run on to it ; but I am myself inclined tothink that it is a note or a rubric rather62


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than an utterance of the Initiator.The ceremony changes. Hitherto there OFhad been the circle-dance, the " going JESUS.

round in a ring," which enclosed themystery-drama, and the chanting of thesacred word.

Contact is now mystically establishedwith the Great Sphere, Chads or Sophia,the Counterpart or Spouse or Syzygy ofthe Supernal Christ, or of the ChristAbove. She " leads the dance " ; thatis to say, the actors begin to act accordingto the great cosmic movements.

"

I would pipe."In the Naassene Document (T.G.H.,i. 183), we read :

" The Phrygians also say that thatwhich is generated from Him is Syriktes."Syriktes is the Piper, properly the

player on the syrinx, or seven-reededPan-pipe, whereby the music of thespheres is created.

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HYMN ^n(* on *kis ^e earty Jewish commen-OF tator remarks :JESUS.

" For that which is generated is Spiritin harmony."That is to say, Spirit, or Sophia the HolyBreath, is harmony ; and the Harmonywas the name of the Seven Spheres encircled by the Eighth. Curiously enough,later on in our fragment the Logos iscalled " Wisdom in harmony."The Greek word for " dance " in the

sentence " dance ye all " is different fromthat in the phrase " leadeth the dance."It reminds us of the " orchestra " in theGreek theatre.The Greek drama, I hold, arose fromthe Mysteries. The general view, however, is that it " sprang from the choraldances round the altar of Dionysus," andso the architectural form of the Greektheatre " was developed from the circulardancing place," the orchestra.The dance is to represent the dance of

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the world-mystery, and therefore of theman-mystery of joy and sorrow, of OFrejoicing and beating the breast. JESUS.

It is hardly necessary here to remindthe reader of the Gospel-saying taken bythe first (Matth., xi. 17) and third (Lk.,vii. 27) Evangelist from a commonsource :

" We have piped unto you, and yehave not danced ;" We have played a dirge unto you, and

ye have not lamented."

Is it possible that there was an innertradition of a scripture in which thisSaying stood in the first person singular ?I think I have made out a presumptionin my analysis of the Naassene Document(T.H.G., \. 195) that the Christian commentator, in his parallels with the FourthGospel, legitimately opens up for us thequestion whether or no he was in touchwith " sources " of that " Johannine "document.

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HYMN *n any case * WOU^ suggest that for theop Gnostic there was an under-meaning, andJESUS, that it is here in our Hymn expressed forus though still mystically hidden.

The higher quaternion, or tetrad, asthe Gnostic Marcus would have phrased it,of joy is to blend with the lower tetrad ofsorrow ; and both together are to forman octave, whereby the man is raised fromhis littleness into the Greatness ; that isto say, he can now respond to cosmicmusic.

Therefore what was apparently originally a rubric (" The one Eight

"

etc.),has been put by an unknowing scribe intothe mouth of the Initiator, and an Amenadded.The Ogdoad or Eight (in music the full

Octave), " sounds with us " ; that is, weare now beginning to dance to the Musicof the Spheres.And this being so, the sense of theinitiated soul may be said to becomecosmic, for it begins to vibrate with, or

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answer back to, or become in sympathywith, the ordered motions of the Greatness ; OFand therefore the Higher Twelve, the JESUS.Powers that transcend the separated soul,and which crown or surround the GreatSphere, now lead the dance.

Or, to speculate more daringly ; theindications seem to denote a belief thatat this stage in the rite there was presentthe Presence of Masterhood ; and thiswould mean for the aspirant as is sonobly set forth in the Trismegistic " SecretSermon on the Mount," which might verywell be called " The Initiation of Tat "that he passes out of himself to greaterthings.And so his " twelve disciples," as itwere, begin to dance above him or outsidehim ; for the real disciples or apostles ofa new-born Christ are not the things hehas been taught on earth as man, butpowers raying forth from the true Personinto still greater regions.

Apostles who go forth into the worldof men are but reflections of Great Powers

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THE wno now go forth from the true PersonoJM and link him on to the Great Cosmos.JESUS.

It is not easy to conjecture the meaningof the phrase " all whose nature is todance doth dance," for the text isso faulty that we cannot be certain of acorrect version. If, however, this be theright rendering, then I would suggest thatthe " all " is the cosmic order ; and thatnow all is made ready, and spiritualcommunion has been established betweenthe church, or circle below, and theChurch Above, who again is the SupernalSophia.

" Who danceth not, knows not what isbeing done."The soul must dance, or be active ina corresponding way, with the GreatDance, in order to know, or attain trueGnosis. Knowledge of the Great Worldcan only be attained when the man hasabandoned his self-will and acts in harmony with the Great Happenings.

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This reminds us of the Saying in theFourth Gospel (vii. 17) : " If a man willto do His Will, he shall know of the JESUS.Doctrine " ; and again (ix. 31) : " If aman be a worshipper of God and do HisWill, He will hear him." And the Willof God is His Divine Spouse, the Sophiaor Wisdom, by Whom and in Whom Hehas made the worlds.

" I would flee."It may be that here the new-born is in

fear ; the new motions of the GreatPassion are too great for him. Or, again,it may signify the necessity of balance, orequilibrium ; the soul feels itself sweptaway into the infinitudes, and is heldback by the greater power of the Masterthe that in him which alone is stable ;these two are then the centrifugal andcentripetal powers.

" I would be adorned."The original Greek term suggests theidea of being rightly "ordered" (kosmein).69


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TYMN

^ may a^so mean " clothed in fit gar-OF ments " ; that is, the soul prays that hisJESUS, little cosmos, which has previously been

awry or out of order, may be made likeunto the Great Order, and so he may beclad in " glories " or " robes of glory "or " power " like unto the Great Gloriesof the Heavenly Spheres.

" I would be at-oned."We now approach the mystery ofunion, when the soul abandons with joyits separateness, and frees itself from thelimitations of its " possessions

" of thatwhich is " mine " as apart from the rest.And so we have the triple declaration

as to the loss of "dwelling," "place"and "temple" (the very "shrine" ofthe soul), and the assurance of the gainof all "dwellings," "places" and"

temples." And in illustration of thissublime idea we may yet again quotefrom the " Untitled Apocalypse " of theBruce Codex (F.F.F., p. 554) :70


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" Holy, Holy, Holy is He, the [here THE ^come the seven vowels each three times Frepeated] JESUS.

" That is to say :" Thou art the Living One among the

living." Thou art the Holy One among the

holy." Thou art Being among beings." Thou art Father among fathers." Thou art God among gods." Thou art Lord among lords." Thou art Space among spaces." Thus too do they praise Him :" Thou art the House ;" And Thou art the Dweller in the

House." And yet again do they praise the Sonhidden in Him :" Thou art ; Thou art the Alone-be

gotten Light, Life and Grace." The Son of Man hath nowhere to layHis head " for indeed He has all

" places " in His possession.7 1


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THE Then follow the comfortable words thatop the Christ, the Logos, is the Lamp, theJESUS. Mirror, the Door and the Way for thehuman soul ; the Divine Soul is all

things for the beloved.In the worlds of darkness and un

certainty Christ is the Lamp, whom wemust follow, for He leads us along theWay.For those who can perceive the Christ-essence in all, this Christ-essence is a

Mirror reflecting the great truths of thehigher worlds.

There is one means alone of passingthrough the Wall of Separation betweenthe Higher and the Lower, and that isChrist the Mediator. He is the Door ;even as Thrice-greatest Hermes calls theMind the " Inner Door " (T.G.H., iii. 274).And Parmenides in his " Truthwards "refers to the same mystery when hedescribes the Gates, twixt Day and Night,or Light and Darkness.For him who truly knocks at this Door,

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that is who turns all his attention andpower in this direction, the Great Wall or OFLimit will be no more, and he shall go in JESUS,and out at will.

Again, Christ the Logos is the Way.He is our Path to God, both on the Light-side of things and on the Substance-side ;either as a Lamp, or that for which thepure mind looks, or a Way, that on whichthe feet walk. In either case the Christis that which leads to God.

The ceremony again changes with thewords : " Now answer to My dancing."All now may be believed to be taking

place within the Master-Presence. Union ofsubstance has been attained, but not yetunion of consciousness. Before that finalmystery can be consummated, the knowledge of the Passion of Man, that is of theGreat Passion or perpetual experience ofthe Great Act, must be achieved.The soul is to gaze upon the mysteryas upon its own Passion. The perfected

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HYMN sou* can ^aze uPon t*16 mvstery inOP peace ; as yet, however, the soul of theJESUS, aspirant is not perfected in gnosis, but insubstance only, so that it may feel theGreat Passion in itself, and yet as apartfrom itself.

Hereupon in the lower rite, the mystery-drama, the Passion of Man, must havebeen shown. What it may have been isnot easy to conjecture ; it must, however,have been something of a most distressingnature, for the neophyte is moved orshaken completely that is to say, unnerved. He had not the strength ofperfect faith in the Power of the Master ;for, presumably, he saw that very Masterdismembered before his eyes, or becomingmany from one, or in some way done todeath.

After the Passion-drama or Passion-vision comes the instruction ; for insuch rites such passions or experiencesfor the sake of knowing there must be

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the actual experience in feeling beforethere can be gnosis. OF

This knowledge is given by the MasterHimself, the Logos in man : Whereforeit needs must be the lover should firstbehold the Beloved suffering.

And then follow the comfortable words :"I am a couch ; rest thou upon Me."For the Suffering Christ is but the translation into manifestation in time andspace of the Triumphant Eternal Christ,the ^Eon. It is here that that mystery ofDocetism, of what the Vedanta callsMaya, receives a philosophical meaning.This mystery is suggested in many a logos ;but here I will quote only from theTrismegistic sermon called The InnerDoor" (T.G.H., hi. 275) :

" And being so minded and so orderinghis life, he shall behold the Son of Godbecoming all things for holy souls, thathe may draw her (the soul) forth from

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THE out the region of the Fate into the Incor-gJM poreal.JESUS.

"

For having power in all, He becomethall things, whatsoever He will ; and inobedience to the Father s nod, throughthe whole Body doth He penetrate, andpouring forth His Light into the mind ofevery soul, He starts it back into theBlessed Region, where it was before ithad become corporeal following afterHim, and led by Him into the Light."

" Who I am thou shalt know when Idepart."This and the two following sentencesseem to suggest that is, if we mayventure to believe that there was truevision of an inner mystery accompanyingthe outer drama some such idea as this.The substantial nature of the Presence,the Body, so to speak, of atmosphere,which may have been seen with somesuggestion of an idea of human form asits " pillar " or " support," and at thesame time of a sphere or completeness


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holding it together this, says the Master,is not my true Self. I am not this Mirror OFof the World, I am not this Word or JESUS.Living Symbol which contains the wholeworld, and also stamps it with meaningand idea. What the nature of the realChrist is thou shalt know when thoucomest, or becomest Him.

" If thou hadst known how tosuffer."The sentences so beginning are perhapsthe most pregnant in meaning in thewhole of this marvellous ritual. It seems

in one sense (for there are infinite meanings) to signify : If the substance of yourbody had really known how to dance, andso been able to respond exactly to My Passion (that is, the manifestation in activityof real life and consciousness), then youwould have had the power to have keptstable about the Mystic Centre, and nothave been dragged back into your bodyof suffering, or in-harmony ; you wouldnot have been dragged back onto the

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THE dramatic side of things and been swampedOFM by the drama.JESUS.

" That which thou knowest not, IMyself will teach thee."That which the soul unaided cannotknow, the Master will teach. That is tosay, presumably : This Power or Presenceis a link between your own " body " oratmosphere and the realities of GreatThings.As soon as the sphere-" body " (thepsychic envelope of normal man is saidto be an ellipse, egg-shaped, imperfect) iscapable of dancing, the Power of theMaster will stamp it with meaning. Thelittle self cannot do this. The Power isnot connected with little things. Itcomes from the greater worlds as anatural result of the perfect dancing ofthe substances of all man s " bodies."

"I am thy God, not the Betrayer s."Taken in connection with the introductorywords before our Hymn, this will probably78


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suggest to most readers the thought of THE^Judas. But the Gnostics moved in a OFwider circle of ideas. JESUS.The Betrayer is rather the lawless

Serpent, the Kakodaimon, that whichhands the soul over to the bodies ofdeath a mystery that is not touchedupon in our ritual.

" I would be kept in time with holysouls."

This sentence appears to me to be misplaced. One of its meanings seems tobe that as the soul watches the Dance, itprays to be brought into harmony with" Holy Souls " ; that is to have its consciousness and form brought into suchperfect relationship as to become one.Then the little soul would become a GreatSoul or Master, a Perfect or BalancedSoul.

The concluding sentences are evidentlydrawn from two different traditions ofthe original text ; they are two separate

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HYMN encungs copied down one after the other.OF It is thus to be conjectured that thereJESUS, were several variants of this ritual, andthat it was, therefore, widely known andused in Gnostic circles.

It must, however, have been at firstkept very secret, for later on in the textof our fragment we read the injunctionof the Master to John :

" That Passion which I showed untothee and unto the rest in the Dance, Iwill that it be called a mystery."Can it be that in the original form, itwas John, the Beloved himself, who wasthe candidate ?It may have been so ; but even if so,

" John " would not be understood by aGnostic to be the name of one singlehistorical character. There had been,there were, and there would be manyJohns.From the Twelve Three; and from theThree One.

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For just as we find that there were ^NThree Peter, James and John who were Fnearest the Lord in His Great Moments, JESUS,so also do we find in the Johannine tradition that of these Three, it was John whowas nearest to Him in His Great Acts.

Moreover, just as in the Trismegistictradition we find that out of the ThreeAmmon, Asclepius and Tat it is Tat, themost spiritual of the disciples, whosucceeds his " Father," Thrice-greatestHermes, when He is taken to the Gods ;so also do we find in the Johannine tradition that it is John who succeeds Jesuswhen He ascends to the Father of all" Fathers."

" Father " was the technical name ofthe Master, or Initiator, and the Head ofthe community.And so, in a codex of the Fourth Gospel,preserved in the archives of the Templarsof St. John of Jerusalem, in Paris thatis to say in all probability in a documentthat belonged to those who came intocontact with the Johannine tradition in

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HYMN the East we find (Thilo, Cod. Apoc.OF N.T., p. 880) the following additionsJESUS, which are absent from the Textus

Receptus.To John, xvii. 26 :" Amen, I say unto you, I am not of

this world; but John shall be yourFather, till he shall go with Me intoParadise. And He anointed them with

the Holy Spirit."And to John, xix. 26-30 :" He saith to His Mother : Weep not ;I go to My Father and to Eternal Life.Behold Thy Son. He will keep My

place." Then saith He to the Disciple :Behold thy Mother !" Then bowing His Head He breathed

forth His Spirit."But if it be willed that that which " Ishowed unto thee . . . in the Dance"

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be " called a mystery," it must equally bewilled that it be kept a mystery. QFI therefore offer my surmises on the JESUS,altar of the Outer Court, though hardlyventuring to think they will be regardedas reasonable oblations to the GreatPresence by many of the Many whoserve there.

I would, however, venture to hopethat I have at least established a strongpresumption that the Hymn of Jesus isno hymn, but a very early Christianmystery-ritual, and perhaps the oldestChristian ritual of any kind preservedto us.


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G R S Mead - Echoes From the Gnosis, Vol 4 Hymn of Yeshua (1906)

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