Pistis Sophia

Pistis Sophia — G. R. S. Mead — Section 19

It is true that about this time such meu arose as Clement of Alexandria and Origen who voiced much more liberal views and laid the foundations of Christian theology, but they were exceptions to the rule. The Gnostic doctors could not believe that the Jews were the only nation in the past to whom God had revealed himself, and that the scriptures of the nations were to be cast on the dustheap of falsehood and error. And yet they saw that the old order of things had received a rude shock, and that the fierce faith which had been aroused among the people in the personality of Jesus, and the social revolution which was rushing along with leaps and bounds under their very eyes, could never be dammed back again. All they could hope to do was to turn the energy generated into a more universal channel. Accordingly they used the tradi- tional story of Jesus w'hich had roused such mighty enthu- siasm, as the fi'amework into which they wove the "wisdom" of the great religions. Believing, as they did, that truth was one, and at no time a respecter of persons or nations ; that all the nations had received of that truth in proportion to their needs and capacities, they wove these ideas into the Christian tradition, and compiled gospels and apocalypses of that veiled and mysterious wisdom which had been guarded so carefully in the temples throughout the ages, and into which they believed Jesus had been initiated and was in his turn an initiator. Nor did they so much invent these things out of their ov,m beads as it would appear, but rather compiled them from existing scriptures, many of which have since disappeared. They drew from the wisdom of Egypt, Chaldfca, Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, Jjlthiopia, the books of Orpheus, Pythagoras and Plato, of the Magi and Zoroaster ; and even perhaps in some indirect way from those of the Brahmans. Their source of information was for the most part the Orient. Believing as they did, that the orthodox life of Jesus was legendary and allegorical, and finding many other legends current which were not included in the Synoptic account ; INTRODUCTION. XXV