Greco-Christian stream·Pistis Sophia·Third Book — Mysteries of the Light·Chapter 109
Mary continueth her questioning
How he who possesseth the mysteries can come forth out of the body without suffering · Light, until it reacheth the region of its kingdom
Source context
- Theme
- mysteries of light as initiatory revelation within Gnostic Christian cosmology
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
- GA 69c, 1912-11-16Steiner identifies the Christ impulse as absolutely necessary for human development on earth, crediting Gnostic thinkers such as Basilides, Marcion, and Valentinus with preserving this central developmental idea, though their writings were largely destroyed or known only through counter-writings.
- GA 228, 1923-07-28Steiner notes that Gnostic texts were systematically destroyed and that Europeans know the Gnostics almost exclusively through polemical counter-sources, making direct access to Gnostic light-mysteries historically obscured.
- GA 87, 1902-04-19Steiner describes the Gnostics as integrating ancient religious systems of the whole world into their foundational views, placing their light-knowledge within a broad cross-tradition initiatory lineage.
- GA 8, chapter 8Steiner interprets the Apocalypse of John in terms of light-mysteries, noting that divine light replaces solar illumination in the eschatological city, and that the mysteries are no longer to be concealed but openly revealed.
Cross-tradition
- Neoplatonic light-metaphysics (Plotinus)Plotinus in the Enneads structures emanation as a cascade of light from the One through Nous to Soul, displaying cross-tradition congruence with Gnostic pleroma-light cosmologies in which successive aeons embody diminishing luminosity.
- Hermetic tradition (Corpus Hermeticum)The Poimandres opens with a vision of light as the primordial divine mind, a structural parallel to Gnostic light-mystery initiations in which direct noetic illumination constitutes salvific knowledge.
- Jewish Kabbalah (Ohr Ein Sof)The Kabbalistic doctrine of Ohr Ein Sof — infinite divine light withdrawn through tzimtzum to permit creation — shows cross-tradition congruence with Gnostic accounts of the Pleroma's light contracted or veiled within material existence.
Chapter 109
CHAPTER 109
Mary continueth her questioning.And Mary answered and said: "Now, therefore, my Lord, hast thou then not brought mysteries into the world that man |277. may not die through the death which is appointed him by the rulers of the Fate,--be it that it is appointed one to die by the sword or die by the waters or through tortures and torturings and acts of violence which are in the law, or through any other evil death,--hast thou then not brought mysteries into the world that man may not die with them through the rulers of the Fate, but that he may die by a sudden death, so that he endure no sufferings through such kinds of death? For they are exceedingly numerous who persecute us because of thee, and numerous those who persecute us because of thy name, in order that, if they torture us, we may speak the mystery and straightway go out of the body without having endured any sufferings at all."
How he who possesseth the mysteries can come forth out of the body without suffering.The Saviour answered and said unto all his disciples: "Concerning this word on which ye question me, I have spoken unto you at another time; but hearken again that I may say it unto you anew: Not only ye, but every man who will accomplish that first mystery of the First Mystery of the Ineffable,--he who, therefore, shall perform that mystery and accomplish it in all its figures and all its types and all its stations, in
performing it, he will not come out of the body; but after he hath accomplished that mystery in all its figures |278. and all its types, thereafter then at every time when he shall speak the name of that mystery, he will save himself from all that which is appointed him by the rulers of the Fate. And in that hour he will come forth out of the body of the matter of the rulers, and his soul will become a great light-stream, so that it soareth on high and penetrateth all the regions of the rulers and all the regions of the Light, until it reacheth the region of its kingdom. Neither giveth it answers nor apologies in any region at all, for it is without tokens."