102 



CANON J. A. MAcCULLOCH, ON 



II. 



A truly suffering Saviour was not admissible, and the Cross 

 was explained away, either as a symbol of events, or rather 

 personages, in the higher world, whose actions were the counter- 

 part of man's redemption on earth — redemption in both cases 

 being spiritual enhghtenment. The Cross, transferred to the 

 heavenly sphere, was then a person who enhghtened. In this world 

 man was cast headlong into matter : the Crucifixion reversed 

 this position, since the head was upward. Hence it could be 

 used as a symbol of the process of enlightenment, and the Gnostic 

 in accepting the enhghtenment could be said to have ascended 

 the Cross and to have reverted to his true position — upright, 

 and the Left no longer usurping the place of the Right ; Left 

 symbolizing matter, the Demiurge, all that was earthy ; Right 

 the spirit, the heavenly — symbohsm probably borrowed from 

 Pythagoreanism. This is curiously illustrated by a passage 

 in the Travels of Peter, who was crucified head downwards. 

 Peter says that the first man sank his being in the earth, and 

 even in birth we are all brought forth as if poured into the earth, 

 so that Right is Left and Left is Right. This is also represented 

 by his position on the Cross, whereas Christ, by His position, 

 made these present things into the Left, and what appeared to 

 be the Left into the Right, into eternal things, and Below into 

 Above. " In exaltation of the Right, He has changed all the 

 signs into their proper nature, considering as good those thought 

 not good, and those which men thought mahgn as most benign. 

 Whence in a mystery the Lord hath said, ' If ye make not the 

 Right hke as the Left, and the Left like as the Right, Above as 

 Below, Before as Behind, ye shall not know God's Kingdom.' 

 This saying have I made manifest in myself, my brothers ; this 

 is the way in which your eyes behold me hanging. It is the way 

 of the first man. . . . The Word is symbohzed by that straight 

 stem on which I hang .... The cross-piece is thought to 

 figure forth that Human Nature which suffered the fault of change 

 in the first man, but by the help of God and man then received 

 again its real mind. Right in the centre joining twain in one 

 is set the nail of disciphne, conversion, and repentance.'' 



Documents and passages such as this, either originating in 

 Gnostic circles or full of Gnostic ideas, probably circulated 

 among the orthodox also, with these ideas so far adapted to 

 Catholic thought. Something of that seems apparent in the work 



