23. This is the first mystery that man must learn to understand; then will he be able to understand God as unity; and only finally will he understand the greatest mystery of all--man, the personal man, the thing we each of us now are, God in multiplicity, and why there is suffering. 24. With this the writer breaks off, knowing fully how difficult it is to express in human speech the living ideas that have come to birth in him, and knowing that there are still more marvellous truths of which he has caught some glimpse or heard some echo, but which he feels he can in no way set forth in proper decency. And so he tells us the Lord is taken up, unseen by the multitudes. That is to say, presumably, no one in the state of the multiplicity of the lower nature can behold the vision of unity. 25. When he descends from the height of contemplation, however, he remembers enough to enable him to laugh at the echoes of his former doubts and fancies and misconceptions, and to make him realize the marvellous power of the natural living symbolic language that underlies the words of the mystery-narrative that sets forth the story of the Christ. POSTCRIPT. The vision itself is not so marvellous as the instruction; nevertheless it allows us to see that the Cross in its supernal nature is the Heavenly Man with arms outstretched in blessing, showering benefits on all--the perpetual Self-sacrifice (_F._, 330). And in this connection we should remind ourselves of the following striking sentence from _The Untitled Apocalypse_ of the Bruce Codex, an apocalypse which contains perhaps the most sublime visions that have survived to us from the Gnosis: "The Outspreading of His Hands is the manifestation of the Cross." And then follows the key of the mystery: "The Source of the Cross is the Man [Logos] whom no man can comprehend." (See _Hymn of Jesus_, p. 53.) No man can comprehend Man; the little cannot contain the Great, except potentially. It was some echo of this sublime teaching that found its way into the naïve though allegorical narrative of _The Acts of Philip_. When Philip was crucified he cursed his enemies. "And behold suddenly the abyss was opened, and the whole of the place in which the proconsul was sitting was swallowed up, and the whole of the temple, and the viper which they worshipped, and great crowds, and the priests of the viper, about seven thousand men, besides women and children, except where the apostles were; they remained unshaken." This is a cataclysm in which the lower nature of the man is engulfed. The apostles are his higher powers; the rest the opposing forces. The latter plunge into Hades and experience the punishments of those who crucify the Christ and his apostles. They are thus converted and sing their repentance. Whereupon a Voice was heard saying: "I shall be merciful to you in the Cross of Light." Philip is reproved by the Saviour for his unmerciful spirit.