50 A movement and a rest

LG50

Jesus said:
If they ask you: Where are you from?
say then: We have come from the light,
from where the light originated from itself.
It has risen and revealed itself in their image.
If they say: Who are you?
then say: We are his children
and the elect of the living father.
If they ask:
What is the sign of the father who is in you?
then say: It is a movement and a rest.

In the Old Testament tradition, God created the entire cosmos at a single time, namely “in the beginning”. That cosmos has existed entirely by itself since then.

But in classical antiquity, especially in Egypt, there is also another myth of creation. In that other creation story, the world is created new at every moment. Just as the light shines from the sun every day, so in a never-ending process of creation, reality flows from the Source of being. People call that permanent process of becoming reality: an emanation.

Many texts from the Thomas gospel, and especially this logion, can only be well understood against the background of this Egyptian creation story.

In the Old Testament creation story, God first models man out of clay and then blows his breath into that image of clay. This image fits into the Greek dualism of body and soul that has had so much influence on ecclesiastical Christianity. The body is the molded matter, the breath of God is spirit.

A Greek myth also tells how the god Prometheus from clay formed a human in the image of the gods. The goddess Pallas-Athene, the heavenly friend of Prometheus, who watched his work with admiration, blew her breath into the lump of earth and she also gave the human being the ghost.

Both in the Old Testament creation story and in the myth of Prometheus, body and mind belong to two different and completely separate areas of being: matter and spirit.

In the Egyptian creation story, everything comes from that one Source. Everything is a form of Source, including the human body. Body and soul are together, in their unity, a face of the Source.

That is why you could see divinity in everything. A crocodile also comes from the Source, with all the trimmings, so a crocodile is sacred. And a cat, a cow, a tree or whatever. Because in each of these manifestations, the Source expresses an aspect of itself. Man too is a manifestation of Source and therefore sacred in its entirety, including the body.

All nature, the entire cosmos is sacred. Everything in it, every creature with its unique individuality is a face of the Source. Mind you, because that is essential for Gnostics, so it says here that it is the unique individuality of every creature with which it is a face or part of the Source. That partnership is lost when that unique individuality is denied or replaced by an image that does not coincide with that unique individuality. By replacing the unique individuality with an image, a creature becomes profane, alienated, separated from the Source.

Creation as a whole can also be profaned. That desecration can also be restored. The cosmos can be healed again. The gnostic also sees the role of Jesus as the healer of the cosmos with everything in it. Jesus cleanses the All and brings it back to the Father and Mother, as expressed in the Hymn to Jesus from the Gospel of Truth:

This is how the Word of the Father goes out in the All.
as the fruit of his heart and the expression of his will.
It carries the All, it prefers it
and it also receives the traits of the All.
It cleanses it and brings it back to the Father
and to the Mother:
Jesus, of infinite sweetness!

Whoever wants to become part of this once again sanctified cosmos must also cleanse himself, ‘sanctify’. Or even more correct: who sanctifies himself, sanctifies the entire cosmos. And remember that the word “holy” is related to the word “whole.” So “sanctifying oneself” means: to make oneself whole, to make one, and therefore also: to unite body and soul, and to become creatively a partaker of the Source again.

The Gnostic Philip (108) puts it this way:

The holy man is completely holy, including his body. After all, when he has received the bread, he makes it holy. Likewise, he cleanses the chalice and everything else that he has received. Why then should he not cleanse the body?

So man has appeared from the light, says this logion. And that light revealed itself in their image. Exactly, the whole person, the whole person, and every person, is an image of the Source. Whoever restores the unity within himself is for himself the revelation of the Source, therefore one with the One, and therefore also knows the One. Whoever knows himself, in his original unique individuality, knows the All.

And in himself the person will be able to experience that he is a movement and a rest. He is a rest with his timeless Christ nature, the Source in himself. He is a movement with his personal time-placed human nature. (See also the explanation of the prologue about the twins.)

And just like Source, man himself is the permanent creator of his own world, the movement. But there is also “a place of rest” in people. The gospel of Truth says about this:

Everyone will talk about where he came from and he will hurry to return there. He received his true nature from that. From that place you can derive your true nature again, by tasting from that place and receiving food and growth from it.

And his own place of rest is his Fullness.

All emanations of the Father are therefore a Fullness and all his emanations have their root in him that made them all grow in themselves. He has given them their destiny. That is why they have each been revealed individually, so that they may know Him through their own being.