THE GNOSTIC CONCEPTION OP THE CROSS. 



105 



in heaven, enlightens Divine iEons who have fallen. Theodotus 

 says : " The Cross is a symbol of the boundary (Horos) of the 

 Pleroma, for it separates the faithful from the unfaithful, as 

 Horos separated the Cosmos from the Pleroma.'' * The Cross to 

 the Gnostic symbohzed Divine events, and was a badge of his 

 own enhghtenment. Redemption in Heaven and on earth was 

 enHghtenment and nothing more. The Crucifixion was thus a 

 mystery expressing the great enhghtenment, as is seen from a 

 formula of benediction in the Acts of Philip—'' The mystery of 

 Him Who hung in the midst of heaven and earth be with you.'' 

 This may at once refer to Christ as crucified or to Horos-Stauros 

 as one standing between the Pleroma and the lower world. So, 

 too, in Gnostic baptismal and anointing formulae, both being 

 acts of initiation producing enhghtenment, there is a reference 

 to the enlightening mystery of the Cross, i.e., to Christ the 

 Enhghtener, of whom the Cross is the mystery form — ■" Holy 

 oil which was given us for unction, and hidden mystery of the 

 Cross which is seen through it." f 



IV. 



The Valentinians made the Redeemer Himself Stauros (Cross), 

 but there is evidence that most of the Gnostics mystically iden- 

 tified Christ with the Cross, whether the actual Cross or a phan- 

 tasmal, mystic one, which was now Himself, now a kind of double 

 of Him. 



This is illustrated from some curious passages in the Apocryphal 

 Acts and other documents, w^hich, though probably circulating 

 among Catholics, bear clear traces of Gnostic ideas. First may 

 be cited a passage from the Evcomiasta Anonyma on S. Andrew : 

 " Rejoicing I come to thee, 0 hfe-giving Cross, which I know as 

 my own. I recognize thy mystery, because thou art planted 

 in the world to estabhsh the unstable. Thy head stretches to 

 heaven to point out the heavenly Logos. . . . Thy middle 

 points are as hands stretched out to right, and left to put to 

 flight the opposing power of the evil one and to gather the dis- 

 persed together. Thy lower part is fastened in the earth .... 

 that those lying under the earth, and held fast there, may be 

 brought up and united to the heavenly. . . . Thou who led 

 back the worthy to God through knowledge {iiriyvoyai^), and 



* Excerpta ex Theodoto, § 42. 



t W. Wright, Apocryphal Acts of Apostles, ii, 258. 



