The Gnostic Gospels (26 page)

How is one to realize that potential? Many of the gnostic sources cited so far contain only aphorisms directing the disciple to search for knowledge, but refraining from telling anyone how to search. Discovering that for oneself is, apparently, the first step toward self-knowledge. Thus, in the
Gospel of Thomas
, the disciples ask Jesus to tell them what to do:

His disciples questioned him and said to him, “Do you want us to fast? How shall we pray? Shall we give alms? What diet shall we observe?” Jesus said, “Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate …”
⁷³

His ironic answer turns them back to themselves: who but oneself can judge when one is lying or what one hates? Such cryptic answers earned sharp criticism from Plotinus, the neo-Platonic philosopher who attacked the gnostics when their teaching was attracting some of his own students away from philosophy. Plotinus complained that the gnostics had no program for teaching: “They say only, ‘Look to God!,’ but they do not tell anyone
where
or
how
to look.”
⁷⁴

Yet several of the sources discovered at Nag Hammadi do describe techniques of spiritual discipline.
Zostrianos
, the longest text in the Nag Hammadi library, tells how one spiritual master attained enlightenment, implicitly setting out a program for others to follow. Zostrianos relates that, first, he had to remove from himself physical desires, probably by ascetic practices. Second, he had to reduce “chaos in mind,”
⁷⁵
stilling his mind with meditation. Then, he says, “after I set myself straight, I saw the perfect child”
⁷⁶
—a vision of the divine presence. Later, he says, “I was pondering these matters in order to understand them.… I did not cease seeking a place of rest worthy of my spirit …”
⁷⁷
But then, becoming “deeply troubled,” discouraged with his progress, he went out into the desert, half anticipating being killed by wild animals. There, Zostrianos relates, he first
received a vision of “the messenger of the knowledge of the eternal Light,”
⁷⁸
and went on to experience many other visions, which he relates in order to encourage others: “Why are you hesitating? Seek when you are sought; when you are invited, listen.… Look at the Light. Flee the darkness. Do not be led astray to your destruction.”
⁷⁹

Other gnostic sources offer more specific directions. The
Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth
discloses an “order of tradition” that guides the ascent to higher knowledge. Written in dialogue form, the
Discourse
opens as the student reminds his spiritual master of a promise:

“[O my father], yesterday you promised me [that you would bring] my mind into [the] eighth and afterwards you would bring me into the ninth. You said that this is the order of the tradition.”
⁸⁰

His teacher assents: “O my son, indeed this is the order. But the promise was according to human nature.”
⁸¹
He explains that the disciple himself must bring forth the understanding he seeks: “I set forth the action for you. But the understanding dwells in you. In me, (it is) as if the power were pregnant.”
⁸²
The disciple is astonished; is the power, then, actually within him? The master suggests that they both must pray that the disciple may come to the higher levels, the “eighth and the ninth.” Already he has progressed through the first seven levels of understanding, impelled by moral effort and dedication. But the disciple admits that, so far, he has no firsthand experience of divine knowledge: “O my father, I understand nothing but the beauty which came to me in books.”
⁸³

Now that he is ready to go beyond vicarious knowledge, the two join in prayer “to the perfect, invisible God to whom one speaks in silence.”
⁸⁴
The prayer moves into a chant of sacred words and vowels: “Zoxathazo a ōō ēē ōōō ēēē ōōōō ēē ōōōōōōōōōōōō ōōōōōō uuuuuu ōōōōōōōōōōōō ōōō Zozazoth.”
⁸⁵
After intoning the chant, the teacher prays, “Lord … acknowledge
the spirit that is in us.”
⁸⁶
Then he enters into an ecstatic state:

“…  I see! I see indescribable depths. How shall I tell you, O my son? … How [shall I describe] the universe? I [am mind and] I see another mind, the one that [moves] the soul! I see the one that moves me from pure forgetfulness. You give me power! I see myself! I want to speak! Fear restrains me. I have found the beginning of the power that is above all powers, the one that has no beginning.… I have said, O my son, that I am Mind. I have seen! Language is not able to reveal this. For the entire eighth, O my son, and the souls that are in it, and the angels, sing a hymn in silence. And I, Mind, understand.”
⁸⁷

Watching, the disciple himself is filled with ecstasy: “I rejoice, O my father, because I see you smiling. And the universe rejoices.” Seeing his teacher as himself embodying the divine, the disciple pleads with him, “Let not my soul be deprived of the great divine vision. For everything is possible for you as master of the universe.” The master tells him to sing in silence, and to “ask what you want in silence”:

When he had finished praising he shouted, “Father Trismegistus! What shall I say? We have received this light. And I myself see the same vision in you. I see the eighth and the souls that are in it and the angels singing a hymn to the ninth and its powers.… I pray to the end of the universe and the beginning of the beginning, to the object of man’s quest, the immortal discovery … I am the instrument of thy spirit. Mind is thy plectrum. And thy counsel plucks me. I see myself! I have received power from thee. For thy love has reached us.”
⁸⁸

The
Discourse
closes as the master instructs the student to write his experiences in a book (presumably the
Discourse
itself) to guide others who will “advance by stages, and enter into the way of immortality.… into the understanding of the eighth that reveals the ninth.”
⁸⁹

·  ·  ·

Another extraordinary text, called
Allogenes
, which means “the stranger” (literally, “one from another race”), referring to the spiritually mature person who becomes a “stranger” to the world, also describes the stages of attaining
gnosis.
Here Messos, the initiate, at the first stage, learns of “the power that is within you.” Allogenes explains to him his own process of spiritual development:

… [I was] very disturbed, and [I] turned to myself.… [Having] seen the light that [surrounded] me and the good that was within me, I became divine.
⁹⁰

Then, Allogenes continues, he received a vision of a feminine power, Youel, “she who belongs to all the glories,”
⁹¹
who told him:

… “Since your instruction has become complete, and you have known the good that is within you, hear concerning the Triple Power those things that you will guard in great silence and great mystery …”
⁹²

That power, paradoxically, is silent, although it utters sound: zza zza zza.
⁹³
This, like the chant in the
Discourse
, suggests a meditative technique that includes intoning sound.

Having first discovered “the good … within me,” Allogenes advanced to the second stage—to know oneself.

[And then I] prayed that [the revelation] might occur to me.… I did not despair … I prepared myself therein, and I took counsel with myself for a hundred years. And I rejoiced exceedingly, since I was in a great light and a blessed path …
⁹⁴

Following this, Allogenes says, he had an experience out of the body, and saw “holy powers” that offered him specific instruction:

… “O Allo [g]enes, behold your blessedness … in silence, wherein you know yourself as you are, and, seeking yourself, ascend to the Vitality that you will see moving. And if it is impossible for you to stand, fear nothing; but if you wish to stand, ascend to the Existence, and you will find it standing and stilling itself … And when you receive a revelation … and you become afraid in that place, withdraw back because of the energies. And when you have become perfect in that place, still yourself.”
⁹⁵

Is this speech of the “holy powers” to be recited in some dramatic performance enacted by members of the gnostic sect for the initiate in the course of ritual instruction? The text does not say, although the candidate goes on to describe his response:

Now I was listening to these things as those present spoke them. There was a stillness of silence within me, and I heard the blessedness whereby I knew myself as (I am).
⁹⁶

Following the instruction, the initiate says he was filled with “revelation … I received power … I knew the One who exists in me, and the Triple Power, and the revelation of his uncontain-ableness.”
⁹⁷
Ecstatic with this discovery, Allogenes desires to go further: “I was seeking the ineffable and Unknown God.”
⁹⁸
But at this point the “powers” tell Allogenes to cease in his futile attempt.

Contrary to many other gnostic sources,
Allogenes
teaches that, first, one can come to know “the good that is within,” and second, to know oneself and “the one who exists within,” but one cannot attain knowledge of the Unknown God. Any attempt to do so, to grasp the incomprehensible, hinders “the effortlessness which is within you.” Instead, the initiate must content himself to hear about God “in accordance with the capacity provided by a primary revelation.”
⁹⁹
One’s own experience and knowledge, then, essential for spiritual development, provides the basis for receiving understanding about God in
negative
form.
Gnosis
involves recognizing, finally, the limits of human knowledge:

“…  (Whoever) sees (God) as he is in every respect, or would say that he is something like
gnosis
, has sinned against him … because he did not know God.”
¹⁰⁰

The powers instructed him “not [to] seek anything more, but go … It is not fitting to spend more time seeking.”
¹⁰¹
Allogenes says he wrote this down for “the sake of those who will be worthy.”
¹⁰²
The detailed exposition of the initiate’s experience, including sections of prayers, chants, instruction, punctuated by his retreat into meditation, suggest that the text records actual techniques of initiation for attaining that self-knowledge which is knowledge of divine power within.

But much of gnostic teaching on spiritual discipline remained, on principle, unwritten. For anyone can read what is written down—even those who are not “mature.” Gnostic teachers usually reserved their secret instruction, sharing it only verbally, to ensure each candidate’s suitability to receive it. Such instruction required each teacher to take responsibility for highly select, individualized attention to each candidate. And it required the candidate, in turn, to devote energy and time—often years—to the process. Tertullian sarcastically compares Valentinian initiation to that of the Eleusinian mysteries, which

first beset all access to their group with tormenting conditions; and they require a long initiation before they enroll their members, even instruction for five years for their adept students, so that they may educate their opinions by this suspension of full knowledge, and, apparently, raise the value of their mysteries in proportion to the longing for them which they have created. Then follows the duty of silence …
¹⁰³

Obviously, such a program of discipline, like the higher levels of Buddhist teaching, would appeal only to a few. Although major themes of gnostic teaching, such as the discovery of the divine within, appealed to so many that they constituted a major threat to catholic doctrine, the religious perspectives and methods of gnosticism did not lend themselves to mass religion. In this respect, it was no match for the highly effective system of organization of the catholic church, which expressed a unified religious perspective based on the New Testament canon, offered
a creed requiring the initiate to confess only the simplest essentials of faith, and celebrated rituals as simple and profound as baptism and the eucharist. The same basic framework of doctrine, ritual, and organization sustains nearly all Christian churches today, whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. Without these elements, one can scarcely imagine how the Christian faith could have survived and attracted so many millions of adherents all over the world, throughout twenty centuries. For ideas alone do not make a religion powerful, although it cannot succeed without them; equally important are social and political structures that identify and unite people into a common affiliation.

CONCLUSION