The Gnostic Bible: Revised and Expanded Edition
Willis Barnstone, Marvin Meyer
Language: English
Pages: 896
ISBN: 1590306317
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Gnosticism was a wide-ranging religious movement of the first millennium CE—with earlier antecedents and later flourishings—whose adherents sought salvation through knowledge and personal religious experience. Gnostic writings offer striking perspectives on both early Christian and non-Christian thought. For example, some gnostic texts suggest that god should be celebrated as both mother and father, and that self-knowledge is the supreme path to the divine. Only in the past fifty years has it become clear how far the gnostic influence spread in ancient and medieval religions—and what a marvelous body of scriptures it produced.
The selections gathered here, in poetic, readable translation, represent Jewish, Christian, Hermetic, Mandaean, Manichaean, Islamic, and Cathar expressions of gnostic spirituality. Their regions of origin include Egypt, the Greco-Roman world, the Middle East, Syria, Iraq, China, and France. Also included are introductions, notes, an extensive glossary, and a wealth of suggestions for further reading.
understand the symbolic meaning of the images in the world, and turn inward to look for the indescribable and secret forces of the divine. COMMENTARY ON JOHN4 (1) John 1:3 Through the word everything came to be, and without the word nothing came to be. Everything is the world and what is in the world, but the aeon and what is in the aeon was not born through the word. Nothing is what is in the world and the creation. Who provided the cause of the generation of the world to the demiurge was
their blood upon him and upon the earth. After these things every herb sprouted up in the earth according to its kind, having the seed of the authorities and their angels. After these things the authorities created from the waters all species of beasts and reptiles and birds according to their kind, having the seed of the authorities and their angels. But before all these things, when Adam of light appeared on the first day, he remained upon the earth about two days. He left the lower
my desire is gone, ignorance is dead. In a world I was freed through another world, and in an image I was freed through a heavenly image. This is the fetter of forgetfulness that exists in the world of time. From now on I shall rest, through time, age, and aeon, in silence.’” PETER AND ANDREW DOUBT MARY’S WORD When Mary said this, she fell silent, since the savior had spoken to her of all these things. But Andrew answered, saying to the brothers, “Say what you think about what she said. I do
under the ba. The left ear, eye, and nostril become lams and mim and ha. The holy spirit of life on the forehead is the sign and proof of alif in the middle, and these parts figured on our head are the spirit’s tools.14 The ears are set at both sides for eternity. Quicker than a wink they inform life spirit. The eyes, nose, and mouth are set so Salman, Miqdad, Ammar, Abu Zarr, Jondob, Abu Horayra, and Komayl obey the high king. They remain his subjects, girded before him. They are
centuries before, now lost, on which the Secret Supper was based and shaped to accommodate Bogomil doctrine. It exists in two slightly different versions, one preserved in the archives of the Office of the Inquisition at Carcassonne and the second in the National Library of Vienna. Both come from one source, but the Vienna version appears to be altered to make it clearer in sense and interpretation. It is not complete, breaking off forty-three lines from the end (in René Nelli’s French