part0044

I n his Refutation of All Heresies, the Christian heresiologist Hippolytus of Rome describes certain second-century gnostics, termed Naassenes, from the Hebrew word nahash, “serpent.” Such serpentine terminology recalls Justin’s Book of Baruch, earlier in this volume, and the gnostics called Ophites or Ophians, that is, “snake people,” who are sometimes linked with Sethians. Like many gnostics, the Naassenes apparently sought spiritual truths from a variety of sources. Hippolytus claims that they were especially attracted to the mystery religions of antiquity and late antiquity, which typically stressed mystical experience in the context of a dying and rising deity and which the Naassenes interpreted in such a way as to elucidate their own beliefs. These were alternative forms of religion in a post-Olympian world. When the Olympian gods and goddesses no longer captured the hearts and minds of people, many turned for their religious experience to the mysteries of Demeter and Kore; or Dionysos; or the Great Mother and Attis, the Phrygian fertility god; or Isis and Osiris; or Mithras—or Jesus Christ, whom people like Clement of Alexandria understood to be a deity of Christian mysteries.

The Naassenes, according to Hippolytus, attended the mystery celebrations—for example, the mysteries of the Great Mother and Attis—to gain insights into religious knowledge and life. In presenting materials on the Naassenes, Hippolytus cites hymns to Attis and a Naassene sermon that explains how themes from the mysteries contribute to their understanding of their own religion of gnosis. As Hippolytus portrays the Naassenes, he notes two sayings (one of which, he explicitly says, comes from the Gospel of Thomas) that constitute alternative versions of Gospel of Thomas 4 and 11; the parallel to Gospel of Thomas 11 is in the translation below. Many of the explanations in the sermon are based on suggested—and forced—proof texts and etymologies in the text.

The Greeks say that earth first brought forth a human, bearing a good gift, who wished to become the mother not of insensible plants or of irrational animals but of a tame animal loved by god.

If you say that everything originated from one principle, you are wrong, but if you say it came from three, you are right and can prove the whole matter. There is one blessed nature of the blessed Adam above, who is Adamas. There is one mortal nature below. And there is one kingless race that has ascended above where are the sought-after Miriam, the grand wise man Jethro and Zipporah the seer, 14 and Moses, whose origin is not in Egypt because he had sons in Midian.

“All things were divided in three, and each received his lot of honor.” 15 The great things must be expressed, but expressed by everyone in every possible way so “that hearing they may not hear and seeing may not see.” 16 If the great things had not been expressed, the universe could not have come into existence. These are three supremely important words: Kaulakau, Saulasau, and Zeesar 17 —Kaulakau, the one above Adamas; Saulasau, the mortal below; and Zeesar, the Jordan that flows upward.

This is the male and female person who is in all, whom the ignorant call three-bodied Geryon as if his name meant “flowing from the earth.” 18 The Greeks generally call him “the heavenly horn of the moon,” because he has mixed and combined everything with everything else. “For all things came into existence through him, and apart from him nothing came into existence. What came into existence in him is life.” 19 “Life” is the ineffable race of perfect human beings unknown to previous generations. “Nothing” that “came into existence . . . apart from him” is the world proper, and the world proper came into existence apart from him, and was made by the third and fourth gods.

This is the great and ineffable mystery of the Samothracians that only those of us who are perfect are allowed to know. In their mysteries the Samothracians have the explicit tradition that Adam is the archetypal human. In the temple of the Samothracians are two statues of naked men, with both hands raised toward heaven and with their male members erect like the statue of Hermes in Cyllene. 20 These statues are images of the first man and of the regenerated spiritual man who in every respect possesses the same nature as the first one.

This is what the savior meant when he said, “Unless you drink my blood and eat my flesh, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 21 But if you drink the cup which I drink 22 you cannot enter where I go.” 23 For he knew the nature of each of his students, and he knew that each had to find his proper nature. He chose twelve students from the twelve tribes, and through them he spoke to every tribe. But not everyone hears the preaching of the twelve students, and if they do hear, they cannot accept them. For what is not according to nature is unnatural for them. 24

This human is called corybant by the Thracians who live by the Haimos River, and the Phrygians give him a similar name, because from the top of the head 25 and from the unimprinted brain he begins his descent and passes through all the elements of the lower parts. We do not know how and in what way he comes down. This is the meaning of “we heard his voice but we did not see his appearance.” 26 One hears his voice when he has been separated and imprinted, but no one knows what form he takes when he comes down from above, from the unimprinted one. It is in the earthly creature, but no one knows it. This is the “god who dwells in the flood waters,” according to the psalm book, and who mumbles and cries out “from many waters.” 27 The “many waters” is the manifold race of people from which he shouts and cries to the unimprinted human, saying, “Save my only daughter from the lions.” 28 To him was said, “You are my child, Israel. Do not fear. If you go through rivers, they will not engulf you, and if you go through fire it will not burn you.” 29 Rivers are the moist matter of generation; fire is the impulse and desire for generation: “You are mine, do not fear.” And again, “If a mother forgets to pity her children or to suckle them, I too will forget you,” Adamas tells those who belong to him, “but if a woman forgets these things, I will not forget you. I have painted you on my hands.” 30

This is the wonder of wonders, for “who is this king of glory?” 32 “A worm and no man, the reproach of a man and the one rejected by the people.” 33 “This is the king of glory, the one mighty in war.” 34 “War” means the war in the body, for the creature was formed out of conflicting elements. As it is written, “Remember the war”—which takes place in the body. 35 Jacob saw this entrance and this gate when he went into Mesopotamia, when he passed from childhood to youth and manhood. Mesopotamia is the course of the great ocean, flowing from the midst of the perfect human. And he marveled at the heavenly gate, saying, “How fearful is this place. It is no other than the house of god, and this is the gate of heaven.” 36 For this reason Jesus says, “I am the true gate.” 37 He who speaks in this way is the perfect being, imprinted from above from the unimprinted one. The perfect being cannot be saved unless he is regenerated and enters through this gate.

The same human is also called Papas by the Phrygians because he stopped everything 38 that was in a disorderly and confused motion before his appearance. The name Papas belongs to everyone “in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.” 39 This is true when they say, “Stop, stop” 40 the discord of the universe and make “peace for those far off,” who are the material and earthly beings, and bring “peace to those near,” 41 who are spiritual and intelligent and perfect.

The Phrygians also call him corpse, because he is buried in the body as in a sepulcher and tomb. This is the meaning of “You are whitened tombs, full of dead men’s bones within, since there is no living man among you,” 42 and again, “the dead will come forth from the sepulchers,” 43 from the earthly bodies, being regenerated as spiritual beings, not carnal. This is the resurrection that takes place through the gate of the heavens. All those who do not enter through it remain dead.

The Phrygians call him god when he has been transformed. He becomes god when he rises from the dead and through such a gate enters into heaven. The messenger Paul knew this gate. He half opened it in a mystery and said that he had been seized by an angel and “taken to the second and third heaven, to paradise itself,” where he saw what he saw, and “heard ineffable words that a man is not allowed to relate.” 44 These are the ineffable mysteries of which all people speak, “which we speak in words taught not by human wisdom but by the spirit, by explaining spiritual matters to the spiritual. The psychical people do not accept what belongs to the spirit of god. To them it is nonsense.” 45

These are the ineffable mysteries of the spirit, which we alone know. The savior said of them, “No one can come to me unless my heavenly father draws him.” 46 But it is exceedingly difficult to receive and to absorb this great and ineffable mystery. And again, the savior said, “Not everyone who says to me, lord, lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven, but one who does the will of my father in heaven.” 47 And to show that doers, not only hearers, must enter the kingdom of heaven, he said again, “The tax collectors and prostitutes precede you into the kingdom of heaven.” 48 Tax collectors 49 are those who receive duties 50 on everything, and we are the tax collectors “to whom the taxes of the aeons have come.” 51 The taxes or perfections are the seeds sown in the universe by the unimprinted one. Through them the whole universe is completed. 52 Through them it began to come into existence. This is the meaning of the saying, “The sower went out to sow, and some seed fell by the way and were trodden down. Others fell on rocky ground and sprang up and, because they had no depth, withered and died. And others fell on beautiful and good ground and produced fruit—one into a hundred, another into sixty, another into thirty. Whoever has ears to hear should hear.” 53 This signifies that no one has been a hearer of these mysteries except the perfect gnostics alone. This is the beautiful and good that Moses mentions, “I will lead you into a beautiful and good land, into a land flowing with milk and honey.” 54 Honey and milk are what the perfect ones taste to become kingless and to share in the pleroma. The pleroma is that through which all created beings come into existence and are completed from the uncreated.

The Phrygians also give him the name sterile. He is sterile when he is fleshly and performs the “lust of the flesh.” 55 This is what is meant by “every tree that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and cast into fire.” 56 The fruits are only the rational, the living people, who enter through the third gate. They say, “If you ate dead things and made them living, what will you do if you eat living things?” 57 What they call “living” are rational principles and intelligences and human beings, pearls that the unimprinted one has cast as fruits into the creation. This is the meaning of “Do not cast what is holy to the dogs, or pearls to swine.” 58 The work of swine and dogs is the intercourse of woman with man.

Poleitai does not mean that he is sold but that he turns about and goes around. Furthermore, cities 63 in which we live are so called because we turn and circulate 64 in them. So the Phrygians call aipolos the one who always turns things in every direction and transfers them to his own domain.

The Phrygians also call him fertile, because “the children of the deserted woman are more than those of the one who has a husband.” 65 They are those who are reborn immortal and endure forever, even though few of them are born. All carnal beings are perishable, even though very many of them are born. That is why “Rachel wept for her children and did not want to be comforted for them, for she knew that they were no longer.” 66 Jeremiah too mourns for the Jerusalem below, not the city in Phoenicia, but the perishable generation below. Jeremiah knew the perfect human who is regenerated “from water and spirit,” 67 not the carnal one. It was Jeremiah who said, “He is human, and who will know him?” 68 This shows how deep and difficult it is to comprehend the knowledge of the perfect being. The knowledge of the human being is the beginning of perfection, while finished perfection is the knowledge of god.

The Phrygians also call him the harvested green sheaf. According to them the Athenians give him the same name when they hold Eleusinian initiations and silently show the initiates the great, wondrous, and perfect mystery of the harvested sheaf. For the Athenians this sheaf is the perfect torch, which comes from the unimprinted one. So the hierophant declares that he is not castrated like Attis, but has become a eunuch by means of hemlock and has given up all carnal generation. By night in Eleusis in full light he performs the vital and ineffable mystery and cries out, “Brimo has borne a holy child, Brimos!” This signifies that the powerful woman has borne a powerful child. Holy is the spiritual generation, and heavenly and high. One born into it is powerful. This mystery is called Eleusis, and it occurs at the sanctuary 69 of Demeter. It is Eleusis because we the spiritual have come from above, floating down from Adamas; 70 anaktoreion is from “ascending above.” 71 This is what the Eleusinian initiates call the great mysteries. It is law that those who are initiated into the lesser mysteries should later be initiated into the great ones. For greater lots acquire greater parts. 72 The lesser mysteries are those of Persephone below. Concerning these mysteries and the way that leads there, “broad and spacious,” 73 and taking the destroyed ones to Persephone, the poet said,

These are the lesser mysteries of carnal generation. After initiation into them, people should end the lesser and be initiated into the great and heavenly ones. Those who acquire lots connected with the latter will receive greater parts.

This is the gate of heaven and the house of god, where the good god dwells alone, where no impure person enters, none psychical, none carnal. It is reserved for the spiritual people alone, and those who come there must put on the wedding garments and all become bridegrooms, made male by the virginal spirit. 75 She is the virgin who is pregnant and conceives and bears a son, 76 a son who is not psychical or corporeal but is the blessed aeon of aeons. Concerning these matters the savior expressly said, “Narrow and strait is the way that leads to life, and there are few who enter it. But broad and spacious is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.” 77

The Phrygians also say that the father of all is an almond, 78 not the tree, but that preexistent almond that has within itself the perfect fruit, palpitating and moving in its interior. It tore open its own womb and brought forth its invisible and unnamable and ineffable child, of whom we are speaking. To tear open 79 is to tear open and cut through, just as physicians call scarifications 80 the incisions that they make in inflamed bodies or in those that contain some tumor. So the Phrygians call almond the being from which the invisible one came forth and was begotten, and “through whom everything came into existence and apart from him the nonexistent was made.” 81 The being so born is called flute player, because what was born is a harmonious breath or spirit. “God is a spirit. Therefore the true worshipers will worship neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but in spirit.” 82 The worship of the perfect ones is spiritual, not carnal. The spirit is there where the father and the son are named, the son born of the father. He is the many-named one, many-eyed, incomprehensible, toward which every nature strives, and each in its own way. He is the expressed word of god, which is the word of declaration of the great power. 83 So the word is sealed and hidden and veiled, lying in the dwelling on which the root of all is founded, the root of aeons, powers, thoughts, gods, angels, envoy spirits—existent and nonexistent, generated and ungenerated, incomprehensible and comprehensible, years, months, days, hours, and an indivisible point from which the smallest being will come forth, part by part, to grow. The nonexistent, underived, indivisible point will, by its own thought, become an incomprehensible greatness. This is the kingdom of heaven, the grain of mustard seed, the indivisible point existing in the body, which no one but the spiritual ones alone know. This is the meaning of the words, “there are no words or language, whose voices are not heard.” 84