Apocryphal books (New Testament); Christian heresies -- History -- Early church, ca. 30-600; Gnosticism
Jesus then shows to His disciples the five torture-chambers of the
Middle Way, each of them presided over by an “Authority,” who with his
(or her) assistants has been chosen from among the rebellious Rulers.
Each of these Authorities sees to the punishment of particular sins,
which sins his or her ministers have “entered into man” and caused him
to commit. Three of these presiding demons are females, one of them
being the triple-faced Hecate still famous in the Middle Ages and
Renaissance, and among them we find the merciless Iakhthanabas already
mentioned in the Third Document, and the Egyptian God Typhon. The
different terms of punishment from 150 years downwards which sinful
souls will suffer in these tortures of the Middle Way are all given, and
it is expressly said that these places of torment will be dissolved when
the two beneficent planets, Venus and Jupiter, come into certain
positions in the Zodiac.[37] These Places are, it would seem, actually
shown to the disciples, Jesus thereby in part fulfilling the promise
made in the First Document to lead them through all the heavenly Places.
He then restores the heavens to their normal condition, and returns with
the disciples to the “Mountain of Galilee,” where he celebrates for them
a sacrament with “fire and water, wine and blood.” The distribution of
bread also forms part of this sacrament, and it is accompanied by a
“sign” which we know from other sources was the conversion of one of the
cups of wine into the water of baptism.[38] This “mystery” or sacrament
is said to have the effect of remitting all the sins of the disciples,
and they are told to perform the same ceremony for all those who will
listen to their preaching. They remind Him that there are other Baptisms
of Fire and the Holy Spirit of Light respectively, and He tells them
that these are more excellent than any Mystery save only those of the
Seven Sounds and of the Great Name of God, which if spoken to any demon
will destroy him with all his tortures. He is apparently about to
perform these for the benefit of the disciples when the Document
abruptly ends with the gap left by the tearing-away of the four pages
already noticed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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