  This Gospel belonged to the same category as those of Perfection and of Eve, and belonged, if not to the Ophites, to an analogous sect, perhaps that of the Prodicians. St. Philip passed, in the early ages of Christianity, as having been, like St. Paul, an apostle of the Gentiles,494 and perhaps as having agreed with his views on the Law and evangelical liberty. But tradition had confounded together Philip the apostle and Philip the deacon of Caesarea, who, after having been a member of the Hellenist Church at Jerusalem, and having been driven thence after the martyrdom of Stephen, was the first to carry the Gospel beyond the family of Israel, and to convert the heathen to Christ.495 His zeal and success caused him to be called an Evangelist.496 In the second century it was supposed that an Evangelist meant one who had written a Gospel. And as no Gospel bearing his name existed, one was composed for him and attributed to him or to the apostle—they were not distinguished. St. Epiphanius has preserved one passage from it: “The Lord has revealed to me the words to be spoken by the soul when it ascends into heaven, and how it has to answer each of the celestial powers. The soul must say, I have known myself, and I have gathered myself from all parts. I have not borne children to Archon (the prince of [pg 294] It is not altogether easy to catch the meaning of this singular passage, but it apparently has this signification. The soul trammelled with the chains of matter, created by the Archon, the Creator of the world, has to emancipate itself from all material concerns. Each thought, interest, passion, excited by anything in the world, is a child borne by the soul to Archon, to which the soul has contributed animation, the world, form. The great work of life is the disengagement of the soul from all concern in the affairs of the world, in the requirements of the body. When the soul has reached the most exalted perfection, it is cold, passionless, indifferent; then it comes before the Supreme God, passing through the spheres guarded by attendant aeons or angels, and to each it protests its disengagement. But should any thought or care for mundane matters be found lurking in the recesses of the soul, it has to descend again, and remain in exile till it has re-absorbed all the life it gave, the interest it felt, in such concerns, and then again make its essay to reach God. The conception of Virtues guarding the concentric spheres surrounding the Most High is found among the Jews. When Moses went into the presence of God to receive the tables of stone, he met first the angel Kemuel, chief of the angels of destruction, who would have slain him, but Moses pronounced the incommunicable Name, and passed through. Then he came to the sphere governed by the angel Hadarniel, and by virtue [pg 295] St. Paul held the popular Rabbinic notion of the spheres surrounding the throne of God, for he speaks of having been caught up into the third heaven.499 In the apocryphal Ascension of Isaiah there are seven heavens that the prophet traverses. The Rabbinic ideas on the spheres were taken probably from the Chaldees, and from the same source, perhaps, sprang the conception of the soul making her ascension through the angel-guarded spheres, which we find in the fragment of the Gospel of St. Philip. Unfortunately, we have not sufficient of the early literature of the Chaldees and Assyrians to be able to say for certain that it was so. But a very curious sacred poem has been preserved on the terra-cotta tablets of the library of Assurbani-Pal, which exhibits a similar belief as prevalent anciently in Assyria. This poem represents the descent of Istar into the Immutable Land, the nether world, divided into seven circles. The heavenly world of the Chaldees was also divided into seven circles, each ruled by a planet. The poem therefore exhibits a descent instead of an ascent. But there is little reason to doubt that the passage in each case would have been analogous. We have no ancient Assyrian account of an ascent; we must therefore content ourselves with what we have. Istar descends into the lower region, and as she traverses each circle is despoiled of one of her coverings [pg 296] i. “At the first gate, as I made her enter, I despoiled her; I took the crown from off her head. “ ‘Hold, gatekeeper! Thou hast taken the crown from off my head.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ ii. “At the second gate I made her enter; I despoiled her, and took from off her the earrings from her ears. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of the earrings from my ears.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ iii. “At the third gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the precious jewels on her neck. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of the jewels of my neck.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ iv. “At the fourth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the brooch of jewels upon her breast. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of the brooch of jewels upon my breast.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ V. “At the fifth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of the belt of jewels about her waist. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of the belt of jewels about my waist.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ vi. “At the sixth gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of her armlets and bracelets. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of my armlets and bracelets.’ [pg 297]“ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this stage of the circles.’ vii. “At the seventh gate I made her enter; I despoiled her of her skirt. “ ‘Hold, keeper of the gate! Thou hast despoiled me of my skirt.’ “ ‘Enter into the empire of the Lady of the Earth, to this degree of circles.’ ”500 We have something very similar in the judgment of souls in the Egyptian Ritual of the Dead. From Chaldaea or from Egypt the Gnostics who used the Gospel of St. Philip drew their doctrine of the soul traversing several circles, and arrested by an angel at the gate of each. The soul, a divine element, is in the earth combined with the body, a work of the Archon. But her aspirations are for that which is above; she strives to “extirpate his roots.” All her “scattered members,” her thoughts, wishes, impulses, are gathered into one up-tapering flame. Then only does she “know (God) for what He is,” for she has learned the nature of God by introspection. Such, if I mistake not, is the meaning of the passage quoted by St. Epiphanius. The sect which used such a Gospel must have been mystical and ascetic, given to contemplation, and avoiding the indulgence of their animal appetites. It was that, probably, of Prodicus, strung on the same Pauline thread as the heresies of Marcion, Nicolas, Valentine, Marcus, the Ophites, Carpocratians and Cainites. Prodicus, on the strength of St. Paul's saying that all Christians are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, maintained the sovereignty of every man placed under [pg 298] External worship was not required of the Christian; that had been imposed by the Demiurge on the Jews and all under his bondage, till the time of the fulness of the Gospel had come.501 The Prodicians did not constitute an important, widely-extended sect, and were confounded by many of the early Fathers with other Pauline-Gnostic sects. |
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