Greco-Christian stream·Pistis Sophia·First Book — Post-Resurrection Discourses·Chapter 29
Jesus entereth the thirteenth æon and findeth Pistis Sophia
I ascended to the veils of the thirteenth æon · Pistis Sophia below the thirteenth æon all alone and no one of them with her
Source context
- Theme
- post-resurrection discourse as transmission of gnosis from the risen Christ to initiates
Steiner
- GA 69c, 1912-11-16Steiner identifies the central Gnostic insight — represented by Basilides, Marcion, and Valentinus — as the recognition that the Christ impulse is an absolute necessity for the entire development of humanity on earth, a judgment anthroposophy confirms through spiritual-scientific examination.
- GA 69c, 1914-01-10Steiner notes that the Gnostics arrived at their ideas from the deepest sources of spiritual perception, and that careful examination through spiritual science confirms the validity of these sources.
- GA 87, 1902-04-19Steiner observes that the Gnostics drew upon ancient world-religious systems and incorporated into their fundamental views knowledge that was still widely held in their era.
- GA 228, 1923-07-28Steiner remarks that European knowledge of the Gnostics has been confined almost entirely to counter-writings, the original Gnostic texts having been destroyed.
Cross-tradition
- NeoplatonismThe post-resurrection discourse form — in which a divine figure reveals hierarchical cosmological knowledge to elect disciples — shows cross-tradition congruence with Neoplatonic protreptic dialogues in which the elevated intellect imparts knowledge of higher realities to prepared souls.
- Hermetic tradition (Corpus Hermeticum)The structure of revealed, sequential post-resurrection instruction parallels the Hermetic dialogue form in which Nous or Poimandres imparts layered cosmogonic and soteriological teaching to the initiate Hermes.
Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
Jesus entereth the thirteenth æon and findeth Pistis Sophia."It came to pass then thereafter that I ascended to the veils of the thirteenth æon. It came to pass then, when I had arrived at their veils, that they drew apart of their own accord and opened themselves for me. I entered in into the thirteenth æon and found Pistis Sophia below the thirteenth æon all alone and no one of them with her. And she sat in that region grieving and mourning, because she had not been admitted into the thirteenth æon, her higher region. And she was moreover grieving because of the torments which Self-willed, who is one of the three triple-powers, had inflicted on her. But this,--when I shall come to speak with you respecting their expansion, |43. I will tell you the mystery, how this befell her.
Sophia and her fellow-powers behold the light."It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia saw me shining most exceedingly and with no measure for the light which was about me, that she was in
great agitation and gazed at the light of my vesture. She saw the mystery of her name on my vesture and the whole glory of its mystery, for formerly she was in the region of the height, in the thirteenth æon,--but she was wont to sing praises to the higher light, which she had seen in the veil of the Treasury of the Light.
"It came to pass then, when she persisted in singing praises to the higher light, that all the rulers who are with the two great triple-powers, and her invisible who is paired with her, and the other two-and-twenty invisible emanations gazed [at the light],--in as much as Pistis Sophia and her pair, they and the other two-and-twenty emanations make up four-and-twenty emanations, which the great invisible Forefather and the two great triple-powers have emanated."