After the Lord had danced with us,
my beloved, he went out. And we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled
this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering ,
but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept at what had come to pass. And when he
was hung upon the cross on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day there came a
darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cavve and
gave light to it and said, "John, for the people below in Jerusalem.
I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and
gall to drink. But to you ¡ am speaking, and listen to what i speak. I put into
your mind to come up to this mountain so that you may hear what a disciple
should learn from his teacher and a man of God." And when he had
said this he showed me a cross of light firmly fixed , and around the cross a
great crowd, which had no single form; and in the cross was another form and the
same likeness. And I saw the Lord himself above the cross, having no shape but
only a kind of voice; yet not that voice that we knew, but one that was sweet
and gentle and truly the voice of God, which said to me: "John,
there must be one man to hear these things from me: for I need one who is ready
to hear. This cross of Light is sometimes called logos by me for your sakes,
sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus, Sometimes Christ, Sometimes a door, sometimes a
way, sometimes bread, sometimes seed, sometimes ressurrection, sometimes Son,
sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes Life, sometimes Truth, Sometimes Pistis(Faith),
sometimes Charis(grace); and so is it called for man´s sake."
"But what it truly is, as known in itself
and spoken to us, is this; It is the distinction of all things; and the strong
uplifting of what is firmly fixed out of what is unstable, and the harmony of
Wisdom, being Wisdom in harmony. But there are places on the right and on the
left, Powers, Authorities, Principalities and demons, threatenings, passions,
devils, Satan, and the inferior root from which the nature
of transient things proceeded." "This cross then is that which has
united all things by the word and which has seperated off what is transitory and
inferior, which has also compacted things into one. But this is not that wooden
cross which you shall see when you go down from here; nor am I the man who is
upon that cross. I whom now you do not see but only hear my voice. I was taken
to be what I am not, I who am not what for many others I was; but what they will
say of me is mean and unworthy of me. Since then the place of my rest is neither
to be seen nor told, much more shall I, the Lord of this place, be neither seen
nor told." "The multitude around the cross that is not of one form is
the inferior nature. And those whom you saw in the cross, even if they have not
yet one form - not every member of him who has come down has yet been gathered
together. But when human nature is taken up , and the race that comes to me and
obeys my voice, then he who now hears me shall be united with this race and
shall no longer be what he now is, but shall be above them as I am now. For so
long as you do not call yourself mine, I am not what I am, but if you hear me,
you also as hearer shall be what I was, when you are as I am with myself, ;for
from me you are what I am. Therefore ignore the many and despise those who are
outside of the mystery; for you must know that I am wholly with the Father, and
the Father with me.".
"So then I have suffered none of those
things which they will say of me; even that suffering which I showed you and the
rest in my dance, I will that it be called a mystery. For what you are, that I
have shown you, as you see; but what I am is known to me alone, and no one else.
Let me have what is mine; what ¡s yours you must see through me; but me you
must see truly- not that which I am, as I said, but that which you, as my
kinsman, are able to know. You hear that I suffered, yet I suffered not; and
that I suffered not, yet did I suffer; annd that I was pierced , yet i was not
wounded; that I was hanged, yet I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me; yet
it did not flow, and, in a word, that what they say of me, I did not endure, but
what they do not say, those things I did suffer. Now what these are, I secretly
show you; for I know you will understand. You must know me, then, as a torment
of the logos, the blood of the logos, the wounding of logos, the fastening of
the logos, the death of the logos. And so I speak, discarding the manhood. The
first then that you shall know is the Logos, then you shall know the Lord, and
thirdly the man, and what he has suffered."
When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going down I laughed at them all, since he had told me what they said about him; and I held this one thing fast in my mind, that the Lord had performed everything as a symbol(sign) and a dispensation for the conversion and salvation of man.