Greco-Christian stream·Pistis Sophia·Third Book — Mysteries of the Light·Chapter 117
Mary further questioneth Jesus
Lord, I will still continue to question thee · Lord, bear with me questioning thee
Source context
- Theme
- mysteries of light as transmitted through Gnostic Christian initiation
Steiner
- GA 69c, 1912-11-16Steiner identifies the Christ impulse as central to Gnostic thought, noting that figures such as Basilides, Marcion, and Valentinus understood it as absolutely necessary for the entire development of humanity on earth.
- GA 87, 1902-04-19Steiner describes the Gnostics as holding, alongside ancient religious systems of the whole world, a breadth of spiritual knowledge that remained widespread in their era.
- GA 228, 1923-07-28Steiner notes that virtually all primary Gnostic writings were destroyed, leaving Europeans to know Gnosticism only through counter-writings composed by its opponents.
Cross-tradition
- NeoplatonismThe Neoplatonic emanation of the One as light — from Plotinus's Enneads through Proclus — offers cross-tradition congruence with Gnostic light-mystery structures in which divine radiance descends through hierarchical planes into matter.
- HermeticismThe Hermetic Poimandres vision, in which divine light is the first principle and the fall of humanity is narrated as a descent into material darkness, displays cross-tradition congruence with Gnostic Christian accounts of the mysteries of light and redemption.
- Kabbalistic traditionThe Kabbalistic doctrine of Or Ein Sof — infinite divine light contracted through tzimtzum to generate the Sephirothic tree — shows cross-tradition congruence with Gnostic schemas in which light is the primary ontological reality from which creation proceeds.
Chapter 117
CHAPTER 117
Mary further questioneth Jesus.Mary answered again and said: "My Lord, I will still continue to question thee. Now, therefore, my Lord, bear with me questioning thee. Lo, in openness have we known the type in which the baptisms forgive sins. Now on the other hand the mystery of these three spaces and the mysteries of this First Mystery and the mysteries of the Ineffable, in what type do they forgive sins? Do they forgive in the type |303. of the baptisms, or not?"
Of the forgiveness of sins according to the higher mysteries.The Saviour answered again and said: "Nay, but all the mysteries of the three spaces forgive the soul in all the regions of the rulers all the sine which the soul hath committed from the beginning onwards. They forgive it, and moreover they forgive the sins which it thereafter will commit, until the time up to which every one of the mysteries shall be effective,--the time up to which every one of the mysteries shall be effective I will tell you at the expansion of the universe.
"And moreover the mystery of the First Mystery and the mysteries of the Ineffable forgive the soul in all the regions of the rulers all the sins and all the iniquities which the soul hath committed; and [not only] do they forgive it all, but they impute unto it no sin from this hour unto all eternity, because of the gift of that great mystery and its prodigiously great glory."