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CANON J. A. MacCULLOCH^ D.D., ON 



called back those in sins througli repentance, disdain not hence- 

 forth to receive me also/' * Souls are here to be restored to the 

 Pleroma by the Cross, not by an atonement but by knowledge, 

 and the Cross is figured as of an in^mense size. 



In the Fragment of the Acts of John, Christ, the heavenly Mou 

 who left the body on the Cross, appears to John in a cave on the 

 Mount of OHves, and shows him a cross of hght about which is 

 a great multitude, vn.th. one form and likeness, and on it another 

 multitude not having one form, and above the Cross the Lord 

 Himself, not having any shape but only a voice. Christ says : 

 " This Cross is sometimes called the Word by Me for your sakes, 

 sometimes Jesus, or Christ, or Door, or Way, or Bread, or Seed, 

 or Resurrection, or Son, or Father, or Spirit, or Life, or Truth, 

 or Faith, or Grace. It is called these as towards men, but in 

 itself it is the marking ofE of all things, the firm necessity of those 

 things that were fixed and were unsettled. . . . This is not the 

 Cross of wood which thou wilt see when thou hast descended, nor 

 am I He that is upon the Cross. . . . The multitude of one 

 aspect about the Cross is the lower Nature. Those on the Cross, 

 if they have not one form, it is because not yet hath every limb 

 of Him that came do^vn been gathered together. But when 

 the upper nature shall be taken up, and the race which is repairing 

 to Me in obedience to My voice, then that which as yet hears 

 Me not shall become as thou art .... above them of the world, 

 even as I am now. . . . Nothing of the things which they will 

 say of Me have I suffered."' f 



Here the actual Cross is robbed of all significance and is a mere 

 symbol of a mystery cross — Stauros or Horos separating and 

 estabhshing. The Cross is one with the Redeemer Who is only 

 a Voice. The symbohsm of the arms and head of the Cross is 

 much the same as in the Encomiasta Avovyma. On either side 

 are the forces of evil whom it puts to flight. The head in one 

 case reaches to heaven and points out the Logos ; in the other 

 case the Logos is above it. The interpretation of the multitude 

 on the Cross as meaning that not yet has every Hmb of Him Who 

 came down been gathered together, is suggestive. Christ and 

 this multitude (the TivevfiaTtKoi) are one, just as Christ and Cross 

 are one. The Spiritual, the Gnostics, are really parts of the 



* R. A. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, Braunschweig^ 

 1883-90, i, 596. 

 t Acta Johannis, ed, Zahn, Erlangen, 1880, p. 221, 



