Origen and Clement

Transcript (PDF)

Alexandria and Rome
Presentation 11 of 14

Origen and Clement
Alexandrian Christianity
Presented by Roger Weir
Thursday, September 9, 1982

Transcript:
[inaudible] I looked all week for these volumes and found them about a minute ago. So, I’m having to work out a memory or a few of these points but hopefully [inaudible].
The beginnings of Christianity are very difficult to discern. And I think in our context with taking Alexandria and Rome, it gives us a little bit of a hedge. We're able to appreciate how a city like Alexandria could have set the intellectual style for the entire world. It had already done so once before in the days of the early Ptolemy’s, when Hellenistic thought replaced a traditional Greek learning and philosophy. Replaced it by modifying it. By expanding it. And so again, we find that Alexandrian Christianity influenced the entire intellectual world at the time by transforming and modifying what had come before.
And I think before I get completely into how this developed, the chain reaction as it were, I might just review for you some of the basic elements of Roman Imperial history to give the general background. We had seen last week that the emperor Trajan had re-established the principate. Had brought together that worldview, which had been initiated by Augustus and had been lost so ineptly in the century in between. And how with Trajan and his successor and adopted heir Hadrian peace finally came to the Roman empire. And the successors after Trajan for the next three, Hadrian, Antonius Pius and Marcus Aurelius brought the golden age to Rome. It was a golden age for Rome from the empire view, but we will see that even under such an enlightened ruler as Marcus Aurelius there were prosecutions as Christians all over the empire.
So that there was a war of ideas that initiated itself sometime around the last third of the 2nd century A.D. And this war of ideas temporarily takes the spotlight away from the physical military wars that had been raging for some centuries in the fields.
The primary route of this war of ideas actually is in an Alexandrian thinker that we had earlier in this lecture series, Philo Judaeus who was an Alexandrian Jew. Extremely learned individual. One whose works have survive largely intact to our own day. We have at least a dozen or more volumes of the writings of Philo. From Philo came the interest in bringing together the ancient Judaic ideas embodied in the Old Testament. And seeing how they would either blend or transform or mutate with the Greco Roman Hellenistic ideas, which were at the same time concurrent with the old Egyptian religion that had been revived under the Ptolemy’s and Hellenized through the cult of Serapis. And I know that this is going fast for those who haven't come to the previous lectures, but we've gone over this, and we've seen how all of this came to pass. And how it all dovetails together.
Sometime in the, towards the end of the 1st century and the beginning of the 2nd century, we find the first syncretistic thinkers appearing in the Roman empire for whom the troubled times, the chaotic psychological conditions, seemed to ripen in them their visionary apperception. And in that group of talented, visionary religious reforms, we have to single out now the second person following close on Philo. Following in about a hundred years. Thee name of a man Marcian. And Marcian, who was branded as a heretical thinker as a Gnostic later on by several church councils, is quite interesting. Because for him and under him in his vision for the first time, he got the idea that there were talented visionary personages within whose writing were secretly and esoterically bound up in symbolic language available to be understood by a visionary audience. Writings whose structure and whose hidden meanings would unfold the true meaning of the destiny of the world, of the way in which history had unfolded itself upon the eternal verities of the heart that were to be chosen in the welter of free-floating values. And Marcian chose the converted disciple Paul.
And Marcian is the first person to collect together the writings of a New Testament personage of Paul. And he is the one who made the prototype of the New Testament. So that Marcian about the time of Hadrian's reign as an emperor collected together this body of writings. It did not draw much attention at the time. And later on, it was only pointed to in terms of his heresies and his stress on Gnostic tendencies. But actually, Marcian begins to set the ball road and to create this atmosphere where a within 40 or 50 years after Marcian’s first attempt, we find one of the central issues of the Christian Church was what was the canon of the New Testament. What could be admitted and what must be left out. What were the sacred books?
And in fact, as you might remember from last week, we had seen that the idea of the temple as a physical structure had been destroyed in 70 A.D. Not just the temple in Jerusalem as a physical architectural building, but the notion that the temple, the seat of religious understanding and worship and learning, couldn’t be placed any longer in the material world. Whether it was in Jerusalem or Alexandria or Rome. And the notion had gained currency constantly from the time of Vespasian that there was a new temple and that the temple was in the spirit of understanding of man. And this psychological client, this religious visionary apperception that it was within the ability sense as human beings, men and women alike.
We went over last week, how women had risen to a point of equality with men. Very, very strongly. And the early Christian Church placed great emphasis on the fact that there was this equality. Also in the empire, we find many Royal women, the wives of many emperors were largely to cause individuals to be saved from persecutions. We'll see tonight that the wife of Septimius Severus who comes very closely after Marcus Auerillius, actually was known as the philosopher Queen, had a whole circle of individuals around her. One of them was Philostratus who wrote The Life of Apollonius of Tyana. Another was Diogenes Laërtius who wrote The Lives of Philosophers [Lives of Eminent Philosophers].
So, women played a very important role. And in particular women who held Royal positions within the empire. But all of this meant that the temple, the New Testament, was a creation, a transformative creation, which would exist in the spirit and not in a physical building. But this is very difficult to maintain. It's very esoteric. A very occult balance of energies and purposes.
So that within 40- or 50-years Justin of [inaudible] we find the [inaudible] of a cannon of scripture for the New Testament and that this scripture was to be encased in a living tradition. And that this living tradition was to be carried by a church. And that this church with the living tradition and with the canon of scripture was to be the generating nucleus for the new temple. So that the Christian community itself would be nourished by the church. And the church would protect the canon and preserve the lineage intact personally. It was called [inaudible]. And we'll get to that in just a little bit.
All of this were features that had to be discovered. They were not made up in the speculative mode. They were not made up in the philosophic mode. They were discovered to be absolutely essentially necessary in this unfolding tradition. The tradition unfolded in a complete junkyard of ruin and ruination. We went through in the lecture on Tacitus and Plutarch, the incredible unraveling of human character under Nero. The tremendous siege of terror under Domitian. The feeling that was stated over and over again by all great classical authors from the time of 80 to about 120 A.D. that we have put together the empire again. But it has already unraveled once. If it goes again is there any guarantee that we could put it together? Or that we should even try? So that there was a precariousness, a brittleness, a fragility about the Roman empire as an ideal of empire.

Also, they kept time from the founding of Rome from the time of Romulus and Remus. And as the 2nd century phased out in the 3rd century came up, they came closer and closer to the year 248 A.D. And 248 A.D. was the 1000 year, the millennia, of the founding of Rome. And so, this incredible human fever of millennialism which we, again, in our time are beginning to just get the earliest trace. Every turn of millennium of a thousand years by any culture and any recognized time cycle has always produced these tremendous synthetic ideas and visions to encapsulate the notion of cycles of times and epicycles of events. And where are we in relation to them. All of this sort of thought.

So that after the four great emperors of so-called peace, Trajan Hadrian and Antoninus Pius, that is the devote, the devout and Marcus Aurelius. That takes us up to 180 A.D. Then Commodus, who will ruled for about 13 years, was chosen by Marcus Aurelius but really didn't do a very good job. Then we find the, an emperor who was born in Africa, Septimius Severus coming to play. And his grand idea of bringing the site of Carthage back. It was called Leptis Magna, and he rebuilt [inaudible] very near the site of Carthage has to be another great city in the Roman empire. And it's almost as if the whole notion of Constantine founding the [inaudible] was foreshadowed in a structural way and some psychic way by Septimius Severus and his program to restructured Leptis Magna. And under Septimius Severus we have his son known to history as Caracalla, who came in about 211 A.D. and lasted to about 216 A.D. Caracalla’s real name was Antoninus but because he set a fashion in the empire, he wore a long coat with a huge collar coming up called the Caracalla. And he was a very flashy, flamboyant young man.

All of these rulers were slowly losing touch with the most momentous struggle of the times. And that was this war of ideas. There were then many emperors from Caracalla through to [inaudible] about 258 A.D. And all this time there was the feeling in the histories of the empire of the kind of lull before the storm. A tremendous sense of high-pressure humidity permeating everywhere. And under some emperors that would be declarations and minor prosecutions. On others, under others, there would be toleration. In fact, in 248 A.D. Phillip the Arabian was emperor, and he could care less whether the Christians were proliferating or not.

And then that next year when Decius became emperor, the worst persecution of all descended upon the Christians. And many great individuals were tortured including Origen. So that from year to year, it seemed that the whole character of the empire in the religious ideational sense Seesawed back and forth. All of this was a sign that along with the fragility and the brittleness on the surface was a tremendous powerful, Jung called it enantiodromia, an anti-drama. A complete reversal of psychic energy was about to happen. This was the Imperial setting.

Now within that Imperial setting, this was the structure of the chain of individuals who made Christianity what it was. After Marcian set up the prototype of the collection of [inaudible] writings, the seed of the New Testament, came a thinker named Justin Martyr. Named Martyr because he was a martyred and killed in 165 A.D. He had been born about 100 A.D. And just to give you a short phrase, this is from the Catholic Encyclopedia. They would write this about Justin Martyr. His major writing was a series of short essays collected together and called Apologies much like Plato's Apology. And there were many other apologies in classical times. It was like a literary genre.

“The Apologies turn a light on another phase of the conversion of Justin’s.” And they quote from his writings. “When I was a disciple of Plato,” he writes “hearing the accusations made against the Christians and seeing them intrepid in the face of death and all that men fear. I said to myself, that it was impossible that they should be living in evil and in the love of pleasure.”

And later on, of course, he is shown to have been moved by the inner integrity of the Christians. And that somehow this inner integrity, this integration of spiritual presence, seem to him more valuable than the exterior learning, which had been passed on through the classical Greek tradition. So that we have with Justin Martyr the first time that someone who had been trained in the classical Greek tradition converting from that tradition for interior reasonings and interior visionary feelings to the Christian religion. And so, Justin Martyr occupies a very, very important place.

The writings of Justin Martyr produced the reaction. One of the writers in the empire, a man named Celsus thought that this is a terrible thing that an educated man to turn his back on the Greek tradition, the Greek learning. So, he wrote a series of, of books. And in particular Celsus wrote a very long detailed work called The Alēthēs Logos, The True Word in which he tried to show that in fact Christianity was a bogus religion. That it was really second rate, if not third rate. That it was derived from second rate thinking. And Celsus for a long time had been thought to a better Roman, but actually he was an Alexandrian. And he was acquainted with the city of Alexandria. Acquainted with the Jewish tradition. Acquainted with the Christian tradition. And acquainted with the old Platonic tradition through its Hellenized form.

Celsus in his large book The True Word produced a fantastic reaction in the city of Alexandria. But outside of it, it was hardly noticed at all. And the writer who first take Celsus at his word is Clement in Alexandria. Clement of Alexandria. And he took Celsus to task and wrote a series of volumes while he was the head of the catechetical school in Alexandria. But it was not until 70 years after Celsus wrote his book The true word, it was about 178 A.D. Not until 248 A.D. at the 1000th year of the Roman empire that Origen, the successor to Clement in many ways, wrote a great book called Contra Celsus. And produced maybe three quarters to 90% of Celsus book in his book Contra Celsus. And we've lost the original book The True Word, but we have in Origen’s critique almost all of the original book plus Origen’s arguments against it. This tremendous space of time, 70 years of having had very little impress upon civilization, and then to have it come back and be one of the most famous books of all time is very, very interesting.

At the same time that Celsus was writing his True Word, another man at the other end of the empire, far away in what was then Gaul, today it’s France, in a very large city at the time and still learn city Lyon. A man named Irenaeus was writing a book called Against Heresies. And it was written almost at the same date. But unlike The True Word written in Alexandria Irenaeus Against Heresies was from the day it was published, the most reliable, successful volume. Almost the complete early underpinning of the Christian Church based itself upon Irenaeus understanding of why heresies were heresies. Why the tradition, which we have come to see, and it's a preserved form, the Catholic tradition was the true Christianity. And why this Christianity completely disposed of all the contending classical learnings. Whether they were Gnostic or Platonic or Egyptian or [inaudible]. Whatever they were Christianity displaced them.

This work Against Heresies by Irenaeus in the name of Irenaeus actually means peacemaker. Ire means anger. Irenaeus, peacemaker. Irenaeus had been a [inaudible] at the church in Lyon. And there had done a minor persecution under Marcus Auerillius. And in response to this Irenaeus had gone to Rome. And the Bishop of Rome at that time Eleutherius had begun to suspect that many of the heresies that had come up, in particular many of the Gnostic heresies, were dangerous to the new religion. And he wanted to confer with Irenaeus about standardizing the basic platform for the church. So that in any Christian community across the empire there would be a standard. And also, one would be able to move throughout the entire empire and keep one's religious tradition and practice in line. So, the idea then was to make some kind of structure of understanding, which would be a standard throughout the empire. And this is what they came up with, that the earliest apostles who had gotten their legitimacy of spiritual power from Jesus himself had in all cases with the first generation of Christians had brought down by laying onto the hands, physical laying on of the hands. And by an inner sense of prayer and grace had communicated in person this religious insight, which the apostles had gotten originally from Jesus. This laying on of hands and this communication by inner prayer was kept intact by the bishops in their time.

And that, in fact, since the last disciple, physical disciple, apostle, to die was John. And he had died very late, somewhere around 90 A.D. And that in fact, an old venerable elder of the church named Polycarp. John had died somewhere in Asia, minor near Ephesus. Polycarp had been seen personally as a young boy by Irenaeus. And so, he says, I know for a fact that between myself and the apostles, there is only one long generation of living generation. So that we can have a chance now in our time, and I am one of the kingpins of this whole realization, that we know that this tradition has passed legitimate from hand to hand with no gap and no space in between. And as long as we keep from here on out the successio from bishop to bishop intact, it will always be pure and true. So that the number one issue out of three, that we must attend to is to protect the [inaudible], the succession of bishops. And to keep that intact. That that must be a rule, a law, of are preserving the word, the church and so forth.

The second was that there must be an agreed upon kin of works that are to be admitted into the New Testament. It cannot be that there are new revelations coming along constantly because this successio you have that could be completely dissolved by new revelations coming along that had not been fit in before. So that the time of visionary scripture was in the time of Jesus. And maybe that first-generation thereafter. And Irenaeus points out that in fact, we can see that the art and capacity of prophesizing has noticeably died down. The envisioning of the world in universal terms and religious structures has noticeably decayed and weakened. Already we can tell that in our time, men seem to have lost this capacity and power. Whereas we know that in our grandfather's time, it was rampant in the world, and there were many people contending. So that it was not just a philosophic speculation on their parts. Nor was it just a political hedging on their parts. They saw in their times enough evidence that they believe that this had in fact occurred and was in fact the case. And so, the second rule along with the successio through the bishops was that there should be councils held to determine what was the cannon of the New Testament. They did not at that early time [inaudible] the final counsels on this. That was later on in history. But they came to that, that idea.

The third was that there was a rule of faith, the Regula fidei, and that this rule of faith was passed on at the time of baptism. So that baptism was in fact, one of the most crucial sacraments that could be undertaken. That the admission by baptism into the Christian Church also conferred through this act of grace and understanding the real faith and one then was a part of the grace of truth. The word for this was charisma. That the grace of truth is charisma could be passed from the bishop to the church, to the flock, as long as he held it legitimate intact. And as long as its shape was protected by a cannon of legitimate scriptures. It’s capacity to dispense legitimate religious communion joining of the church through baptism and through, by the mode of his charisma, his grace of truth. Thus, the church would grew.

And in fact, you know when Irenaeus returned to Lyon within his own time, he almost single-handedly had converted the entire region of Gaul, of France, around Lyon. It was very early one of the largest Christian communities in the Roman empire. We hear contentions in Asia Meyer. We are contentions Alexandria. But in Southern France around Lyon. And Lyon is on the Rhone River then. Today has about a million and a third people. It's about the same size as the Marcelles. It's a huge [inaudible]. All the great rivers of central France, the [inaudible] and the Rhone come together around them and go directly down to the Mediterranean.

It's interesting that Irenaeus insisting on this unbroken tradition and the capacity to keep an integrity was at the same time saying that the, that the Roman tradition of a thousand years has no hold on us any longer. That it simply has surrounded itself with, as he would've said superstitious demons. So that the Roman mind and I'm using my terms now, the Roman mind really was a haunted mind unable to discern reality. And fleeing from one pleasure to another. And vacillating under one emperor after another with interminable battles to extend or contract the empire. Going nowhere. That it was like an enormous juggernaut that had gained its momentum through history by rolling down a hill of circumstance and now they'd come out onto a plain of expectation where a man could no longer participate in this kind of juggernaut existence. And now in this broad, fertile plain human possibility was to be grown. The bright crop of pure spirits that man now have matured. And it was through the church that he would attain his final capacity.

The current of energy that powered all of this operative structure was called the Holy Ghost in Greek; it's called the pneuma. And the Holy Ghost was a, was a spirit of wisdom. And this spirit of wisdom as it would enter into the structure of the Christian community, of the descent of the successio through the bishops, of the rule of faith, with control the tremendous envisioning capacity. The religious insight possibilities.

And this was in fact, the area that Clement of Alexandria, to whom we have to go back to now, really shown brightest. Clement, very, very difficult thinker. His writings really are in the finest tradition of Alexandrian synthesis. And there a watershed between Clement of Alexandria and his next successor Origen. Or his compatriot Irenaeus. For Clement. He was born about 158 A.D. And we think that he was probably born in mainland Greece. Probably educated in Athens. Went to Alexandria as a young man and very quickly joined the intellectual community of that time.

And if you recall, Alexandria had had from the time of its founding through to about 145 B.C., one of the most glorious periods of human intellectual development of all time. And then had come the tremendous prosecutions, the dissolving of the Royal continuity of power into the Ptolemies. And under the 8th Ptolemy, there were all kinds of dynastic feuding’s, and many intellectuals and spiritual people fled from the city of Alexandria. And this in turn fertilized the upcoming Roman empire at the time. So that we found that after 150 B.C., for instance, many of the outlying Hellenistic colonies, like Rhodes or Pergamum or [inaudible], became intellectual centers in their own rights.

Well, Alexandria had slowly in the 150 years brought itself back to a position of intellectual excellence again. But in this period of, how would you say it, coagulated the intellectual mess.
The one element that had not been stressed before that became the major element was the Jewish Alexandrian community. As early as 180 B.C., there was a tremendous book, which is in the Apocrypha, written it's known in last week. And in our tradition as Ecclesiastes. The rabbinic tradition it's called Ben Sira, The Wisdom of Ben Sira. And in that is a tremendous portrait of wisdom. Wisdom as Sophia. And I think I'll give you just a few passages here. I have given a lecture earlier this year, and there are, there is a cassette on this specifically. If you wish to get it in more depth. But just to bring you the beginnings of the re-coagulation of Alexandrian synthesis. But this time the lynchpin was the Jewish Alexandria philosophy that formed the center and formed the transformative core that led to Alexandra and Christianity about 200 years later.

Ben Sira writes of wisdom, of Sophia, “All wisdom comments from the Lord and is with him forever.” In other words, there never is a time when wisdom does not obtain in the Lord. So that there is also not any time sense or timeframe that constraints the Lord. So, we're dealing with an eternity. And we're dealing with a wisdom, which is constant. Therefore, temporal cycles are completely irrelevant as to its manifestation.

The [inaudible] of the seeds and the drops was rain and the days of eternity who shall number them. The heights of the Heaven, the breadth of the Earth and the deep wisdom who shall search them out. Wisdom has been created before all things. And the understanding of [inaudible] from everlasting. To whom have to root of wisdom then revealed? And who has known her shrewd counsels? There is one lives greatly to these feared, the Lord sitting upon his throne. He created her and saw and numbered her. And poured her out upon all his works. She has all [inaudible] with all flesh, according to his gift. And he gave her freely to him that love him. The fear of the Lord, his glory and exhortation and gladness and a crown was rejoicing. The fear of the Lord shall delight the heart and shell gift gladness and joy and length of days. She shall fill all her house with desirable things. And her [inaudible] with her produce. The fear of the Lord is the crown of wisdom, making peace and perfect health to flourish.
And so, 180 B.C., we find Ecclesiastes

At the other end of the development of this golden thread of Alexandria’s Jewish philosophy is a second book, a short book called The Wisdom of Solomon written about 50 A.D. also in Alexandria. This is how it begins,
Love righteousness. He that be judges of the Earth. Think ye of the Lord with a good mind. And in singleness of heart seek ye in. Because he has found of them that tempt him now and is manifested to them that do not distrust him. For crooked thoughts separate from God. And the Supreme power when it is brought to the proof, put into confusion the foolish. Because wisdom will not enter into a soul that devises evil. Nor dwell in a body that is held in pledged by sin. For a Holy spirit of discipline will flee deceit and will start away from thoughts that are without the understanding and will be put to confusion when unrighteousness hath become in. For wisdom is a spirit that loves man, and she will not hold blaspheme or guiltless from his lips. Because God bears witness of his [inaudible] and is a true overseer of his heart and the hearer of his tongue. Because the spirit of the Lord hath filled the world. And that which holds all things and just together has knowledge of every voice. Therefore, no, man that utters unrighteous things shall be unseen. Neither justice shall justice when it convicts pass him by.

So that from 180 B.C. to 50 B.C., this tremendous development of Alexandrian Jewish syncretism, a fantastic view of the wisdom literature as a prototype of what 150 years later became the pneuma or the Holy ghost in early Christian thought. In between were two transformative figures. One Philo coming around the turn of the millennium that we've talked about. The other receiving and transforming Philo’s emphasis on Judaism and the Old Testament to Christianity and the New Testament. And that second figure was Clement of Alexandria.

Now Clement did this work roughly from about 180 A.D. to about 200, maybe 215 A.D. So, within a period of 25-35 years. Most of it was done in Alexandria. He was not the Bishop of Alexandria. The Bishop of Alexandria was a man named Demetrius. He was the head of a school, a catechetical school, in Alexandria. He succeeded as the head of that school, a man named [inaudible]. Quite an interesting figure, but we really don't have time to go too much into him. But Clement was maybe the third or fourth head of the school. And he was in fact succeeded by Origen who is our second thinker tonight. Origen succeeded him while he was only about 18 years old. And that due to an inner politics in the city of Alexandria around the year two 202-203. Origen himself stayed until about 230-232 A.D. And then because that inner politics again was ousted and succeeded by a former pupil of his. All the time the Bishop of Alexandria was Demetrius.

Clement has two words, which we have to bear in mind because they're the crux upon which the transformation of Alexandrian Jewish, the Jewish core of Alexandria thought was transformed into Christianity. The first word is Pistis, faith. Pistis. And Clement defined [inaudible] as having three distinct yet interrelated aspects. The is a particular peculiar, almost attitude of the human mind. That when the human mind believes in first principles, as in first principles of logical demonstration or in reasonable understanding. When the human mind believes that there are first principles it has the capacity for immediate knowledge. That is to say that we understand that the chain of causes leading back in regression from events need not go back to infinity. That there is some point at which we can assume that some elements are true. That some qualities are verities. And that this capacity of the human mind is a part of our God-given character. So that Pistis or faith is that quality, which at the end of the regression of logical reasoning forms a substantial but invisible beginning point of certainty. Not of the scene, not the logical, but of the invisible and ineffable. And that that is true. So that Pistis has this peculiar quality, which we may engender or not engender. We can [inaudible] that or deceive ourselves.

Second, Pistis is the firm conviction, which the human mind possesses after it has reached the knowledge of something by way of a scientific demonstration. After we have seen how something works, we know that this is how it is. And Pistis is the other end also of understanding. It is the inevitable invisible beginning. It is that absolute confirmation at the end of enough of a demonstration, we've seen it enough. We know that that is how it is. We don't have to see it in every infinitesimal detail into the future. So that man's mind is bounded on both ends of its visible operative functioning by invisible certainties that link together. And that this phenomenon is known as faith.

There is a third aspect of Pistis, and it means the tendency of believers to accept the truths contained in the teachings of scripture without attempting to reach a deeper comprehension of them. That is to say writings which have attained to the position of being included in the canon, of the Old Testament or the New Testament, and have attained thus to the level of scripture. Pistis also can permeate our understanding of these rights so that we do not require a scientific demonstration of every point within them. Or of any point with them.

So that this beginning and end, this ocean of invisible [inaudible], which can manifest and occupy the bounds of the human mind in its operations can also permeate the inner part of it. So that an individual could be saturated with faith, completely saturated with faith, the beginning of the end and all the way through. And there is a quality of understanding that comes forth in that saturation condition. And Clement uses the old Greek terms, or it says that this is Gnosis. Gnosis. This is spiritual understanding. And that one who knows, a Gnostic, is one who is certain by means of his faith. But also, by means of this inner working of Pistis in its finest aspect that he has literally seen.

Of course, Clement is writing before all of the literature against Gnostics. Before any of this came forward. It's true that he's writing after Marcien, after Valentinus, after Basilides. And these were Alexandrian personages, many of them. But for Clement the word gnosis is not the dirty word. It is. In fact, one of the high-water marks of expression. And he often refers to the Christian as the truly Gnostic. Because it is the Christian who has been able to understand that a tremendous realization or a gnosis has been made available in his time. And what was that? Not just the appearance of Jesus the Christ. But the fact that in his time in Alexandria it was widely believed by many persons, Celsus agreed with Clement of Alexandria on this very point. That the Greek learning was all an imitation. They called it by the phrase, the theft of the Greeks. It was a famous phrase that they used all the time. That the Greek learning from the times with Plato and even before. Pythagoras and even before were all derived from the writings of Moses and the Jewish wisdom that had obtained hundreds of years, if not a millennium before. And that the Greeks had traveled to Egypt to become initiates. And that, that actually Greeks philosophy in the Greek tradition and the entire colonization of the mind and the Romanization of the Hellenistic mind was all one fantastic historical illusion that could be understood through the operation of Pistis and gnosis. The gnosis as the flash in the center and the Pistis as the ocean of certainty about it all surroundings.

And so, Clement taking both of these points and putting them together wrote a fantastically influential work. In Greek, it's called The Stromateis. It actually is the Greek word for the bag that bedclothes are rolled up and stuffed into and other accoutrements for the evenings. So that the word actually means a bag of miscellaneous objects. Miscellaneous, but useful continuously for the normal operation of life. So, that The Stromateis is his real central work, and it runs through about eight books.

Well, I have got a little bit of a rundown of that and some other material, but I think we're getting towards a break. We also want to take ourselves after the break, down to the library and have the second half of the class down there. So, when you're finished with your tea and your cookies and your coffee, if you could maybe 10 or 15 of you could take chairs down there. And we'll sit down there and have the second half of the class. Let's take a break now, otherwise we'll run out of time.

John Perry was up in San Francisco for many, many years. They don't mention here, he wrote a wonderful book called The Schizophrenia Process [The Self in Psychotic Process: Its Symbolization in Schizophrenia] about 25 years. That was a milestone at the time, in therapy. [inaudible] in the [inaudible] linage is a, was an elderly monk. Was in fact, one of the teachers of [inaudible] Karmapa, the 16th Karmapa who died recently of diabetes. He was a very fine Lama and a good representative of the Vajrayana. So that would be an interesting meeting of great minds [inaudible] the self.

But recall that there's $15. I know when you come to hear Mr. Hall or Dr. Heller or myself, and you pay $1 or $2, you sort of get used to being comfortable at P.R.S. You don’t like to get hit with these big bills at the door.

We're going to have one of our companions here give us about 15 or 20 minutes of an interesting paper on one of the delicacies of understanding Greek language and Greek philosophy. Very difficult to pinpoint and understand. And this will be from work on The Celestial Hierarchies by Dionysius the Areopagite. Very much in this genre and time period. I will of course, after this lecture series, I'm going to take as best I can the six or 600 years or so from Plotinus’ to The Book of Kells and try and take early medieval thought the way in which that developed. This is very difficult for persons to do even if you're a specialist, as my friend will testify to. It's very difficult to, to handle wide ranges that someone has to do this. We have to have some basic idea of how all of this has happened and come to be.

Clement’s position is very difficult in our time. Many people say, how can anyone believe that the Greeks were all derivative from Moses, it’s ridiculous and dismiss it like that. Or on the other side saying, well this was a very early Christian writer and there were many writers who were much better. In fact, the encyclopedias all say that Clement sort of stuttered around. And Origen came and laid down this beautiful system. Much more important. One person saying he was just an interesting person at a time of great change and there are many others. So why dwell on it?

The fact is, is that Clement of Alexandria scintillates. He sparkles. He had a tremendous spiritual insight. And I've tried to excerpt out some of the remarks that he made 1800 years ago that would have just thrilled the seeker and the student at the time who was searching around. This is from The Stromateis. It exists in this volume two of the [inaudible], which we discovered up by the [inaudible]. I don't know why it's there and not in the religion. That's why it was missed all week long. But I've excerpted this out from translation, which I am at home.

“Righteousness” writes Clement, “comes from free choice. We must always have free choice. And when we are free and able to choose whichever way to go, we will.” This is called the Royal Road. But the Royal Road has precipitous bypaths, so that if we choose to go the Royal Road, we must be constantly attentive and stick to the route road because the bypass lead very, very quickly into complete dismay. The Royal Road if you remember, was the road from the palaces in Alexandria to the Royal library. So that's where the simile comes from.

“Words are children of the soul, and they can be planted, and they germinate. Language is a powerful phenomenon.” Words are children of our soul, and they can grow. They can germinate. Thus, the emphasis very early on of Jesus as the logos. The word. Embodied the word. Clement wrote, “Hellenic philosophy is very often like a nut. Not all of it is edible. There is a kernel. There is a core.” But there's also a [inaudible] donning the shell. That's what he's saying.

So that Hellenic philosophy is like [inaudible] not Holy [inaudible]. And he knows the homily because he was of course, an interesting man. He says very often he has noted that chickens that have to scratch for their food have better flesh. If they're pan fed all the time, they're not very good to eat. And very often philosophy is like this. If you get it very simply and people just hand it to you, you're not likely to be very deep. You have to scratch for it. A word at a time. A phrase at a time. It's better for you that way. Don't despair.

He wrote that faith is the ear of the soul. Very often a lot of the similes of spiritual literature are that there's the kinesthetic balance, an apperception, from the ear. And in fact, the [inaudible] structure of the inner ear [inaudible] a crystalline cover, which receives sound vibrations and transmutes it into an organization, which the mind then transposes into meaningful sound. So, it actually, there is a crystalline organizing structure in the ear that arranges the ear. Faith is the ear of the soul. Faith is the one way to truth. In other words, the Royal Road really is the way of faith Pistis. It's at the beginning at the very deepest levels. And that's at the end at the very highest attainments. Our sense of certainty, our sense that we can finally trust it comes from this. And this is the Royal Road. Faith is the one real way to truth.

Whereas ways of wisdom are always various. It is possible to know, and it is possible to go by way of knowing. But the way of knowing is not single but manifold. And so, one constantly has to differentiate so that the rule of wisdom, if you choose to know, always differentiate and always pick and choose and keep rearranging as you go on. Thus, transformation becomes the key process in wisdom. You have to constantly reformulate and retranslate as you go along. What you synthesized and integrated last year is not going to hold you this year. So, you have to keep this dynamic process going on. Thus, it's an ever-unending attentiveness, the way of wisdom. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, as Jefferson said. And it's true for any philosophy. Whereas the road of faith is a constantly integrated single thread Royal Road. It doesn't change. And so that way as a way of consistency, devotion.

“The beginning of choice is also the beginning of action,” writes Clement,
And an unswerving choice gains considerable momentum in the direction of certainty. So that if we choose the way of faith, it builds and it builds its momentum. And thus, it builds a, in its momentum, also a danger that if we try to change our [inaudible] the momentum overcomes us. And we suffer from that. So that there could be a tremendous danger in trying to stop the way of faith, the way of believing. So that when you live that way, when you choose that way, keep up with it, keep it consistent. Because it does require momentum. And the longer one lives that way the less one can really do. It becomes both simpler and also more dangerous to change.

“The first principles of logic,” writes Clement, “are always incapable of demonstration. Therefore, faith alone is always the first cause of the universe that's discernible to the human mind.”

Then we have, “The man of understanding and perspicacity is a Gnostic, one who knows. Gnostic is not to abstain from evil so much, but to do good out of love for the sake of excellence.” In other words, if you're constantly doing the differentiating by negating a negative don'ts, don't do this, don't do that. You're continually fraying the district edges of your shaping process. But whereas if one acts out of love of doing good for the sake of excellence, one then has this inner sense of presence along with the differentiating. And it allows for a certain rhythmic cyclic continuity to obtain.
Those, for those then, who hold this kind of converse with God, life is a Holy festival every day. Is a portion of a Holy festival. “So, that a life consecrated to God in this way,” writes Clement,
has its festive nature.” Not in a frivolous sense, but in the highest possible sense of communion and celebration. “Sanctity, as I can see it,” writes Clement, “is perfect pureness of mind and deeds. And thoughts and words too. And in the last degree, sinlessness in dreams.” That is that the penetration of sanctity of life as a Holy festival of this Royal Road of faith, inner penetrated by the actual brilliant gnosis of understanding it all. This sanctity implodes upon the human being, the body and mind, and so on. And eventually penetrates down to even where, as he say, “in the last degree sinlessness in dreams.”

He wrote, “The Gnostic attaches to intellectual objects. Drawing away from sense objects. And the virtue of, of selecting good choices according to understanding, according to gnosis, aids us.” So that as we withdraw from a sense object orientation to an intellectual object orientation. It shows us that we can wean ourselves away from worlds. And if we know that once that we can wean ourselves away from a world, then any world thus created has no longer that ultimate habitual hold upon us. And we become freer and freer to choose the world, which we would acclimate ourselves to. And hopefully as Clement goes on to say later, that we will see that there is a real world and that that can be observed as we draw away from worlds of illusion.

He said, he wrote, that man is upright. That is that he stands upright, physiologically, by good organization. That we are capable as a physiological entity of standing upright because we're organized to do this. In the same way the inner person can learn to stand upright and manifest a spiritual presence. And that this quality is a quality of spiritual balance, which is noticeable and [inaudible] guessed [inaudible] is acquired. And once man is able to stand upright spiritually, then he may walk in the world for real. And he quotes in there I think something very similar to Paul being in the world but not of it.

He wrote, “The Gnostics soul must be consecrated to light.” The light. It is an attribute of the natural soul. Clement is always saying that we are getting back in Christianity to the natural condition. That man was naturally from this world of light all alone. And so, what we're doing is just returning to a natural composure, which was there all the time, but just unnoticed because of the supposed need for contortion to flit into other worlds. And as we draw away from them and acclimate to a sense of inner light, we realize that our natural condition is obtaining thus the [inaudible], the Gnostic soul must be consecrated to the light as an attribute of the natural soul. And in that there is a natural contemplation of existence. That is to say the quality of exitance standing forth occurs in that capacity as a certainty. So that existence is an attribute of reality.

And later on, of course, in medieval and Renaissance times, the whole thing about arguments of the existence of God and all that come from playing with this ineptly. But in Clement is perfectly clear that existence occurs in natural man in his contemplation of the world of reality. And of course, the first existence existing that occurs to him is spiritual being. It wasn't seen before and now it is. And thus, reality stands forth from the world of illusion and manifests. And if it does for me, and if it does for you, then it does for everyone if they could do it. And thus, the community grows.

You can see where Clement was extraordinary. He was well-received wherever he traveled. The ancient world. Antioch, Palestine, wherever he went. [inaudible]

Love is not desire on the part of him who loves, but is a revelation, a relation of affection. It restores the Gnostic to the unity of faith, independent of time and place. Therefore, the exercise of Gnostic love is one unvarying state of being a friend of God.
That the Christian community of knowers and those living in faith form of community within which the natural contemplation of existence occurs. And this motion of relationality within that community is a love. And this love, Gnostic love, includes everyone as a friend of God. And if you still feel the need for restraint, then you're still subject to illusions an passion and have not yet come through.

Through love also the future is manifest in the present just as if it had already happened. So that there is in this timelessness out in the state outside of time and place. The future is known with certainty because it will occur from the existence that is there in the present. And once that is known, and the process of development is known, the future can be seen. So that there's no need for phony demonstration to uncounted demons through uncounted rituals to hope for success in the future. One need not gamble with astrology and demonology and so forth. Man is freed of all that uncertainty, all those shackles of false ceremonies for the world of reality. Wherein the future is already known manifest. Thus, in the perfected mystic practice of Gnostic Christianity gnosis has a quality of infallibility.

And of course, later on, this became a great seed of contention when it was adopted in other forms. But Clement is the first to bring out this infallible notion. He says that the multitude of people in his time were frightened by Hellenic philosophy as if children were frightened by terrible masks. He says over and over again, I see people in my time completely terrorized by the complexities of the Hellenic world. And they act just like children who are afraid of masks because they need not take them seriously.

And the other aspect of course, for Clement was that one is pulling the rug out from under this tremendous world of illusion that had become an unbearable burden for them. The Roman world with its Greek learning had become too much for them. And the brittleness of that world of course, was assumed by me to be a brittleness in their own selves. The Greek word for science was epistome. And for Clement, he says epistome, science, means pure comprehension. Not guesswork and not the arrival at a conclusion from a certain experiment. But it was pure comprehension. That epistome as science was an understanding of reality complete through and through. And that understanding of existence could be directed then at will through choice to any aspect of the [inaudible] life. Last one knew how to know pure.

And he said, one must embrace divine vision, not in mirrors, but transcendentally clear. And that this is always the privilege of intensely loving souls. That the quality of intense spiritual love gave us transcendentally clear capacity for the mind. So that instead of mirroring the worlds of illusion, it became transparent and could see through to the world of reality. And that this was a privilege engendered through intense, continuous love. So that love was a concomitant of wisdom and never separated from them. It would be foolish to think of wisdom separated from love. Therefore, gnosis was never separated from Pistis. Faith and knowing always went together.

If it is not necessary to endure vices and virtues, but it is necessary to veer things that inspire fear. He says the central problem in his time was not so much to try and live a good life. One could go someplace. And it's not so much to abstain from the vices. They were so apparent by the time that everyone could understand that. But the difficulty was to live in bear and sustain a fear which had become almost an omnipresent quality of human life at that time. And that was the difficulty.

“Thus,” he said, “holding festival then in our whole life persuaded that God is all together on every side present. We cultivate our fields, phrasing. We sail on the sea, him hymning. And then all the rest of our conversation we conduct ourselves according to the divine rule.” The Regula [inaudible] or [inaudible] as the Romans would say.

And in this quality of God being on all sides, present and existing God then is able to hear thoughts. And saints’ thoughts cleave not only the air, but the whole world. So that the religious spiritual man has not only his words, the word, and his words to express it but has his thoughts. And his thoughts in intensely loving prayer cleave the entire world, and thus make a vibrational manifestation in the world.
Whether one understands it or not. Whether one believes it or not. It obtains.

So that Clement near the end of The Stromateis says,
United by prayer instantly through boundless love. United to spirit and contemplation retaining in his soul the permanent energy of the objects of his contemplation. Such as the perspicacious keenness of gnosis. Gnosis at that [inaudible] that contemplation grows and abides as common man abides and prays for good health.

So that he says, now that we have the beginnings of this Royal Road of faith firmly laid down and we can see not only the present, but the future unfolding of it. It is a natural unfolding of the realm of light from here on out. And whoever would see this could join the community. And of course, you could see that this kind of scintillating language tremendous integrity behind it placed in a world where the contortions of the high society of Nero’s time, where they terrifying fables of everyone across the Roman world. It was hardly a wonder that Christianity would have hands down within a hundred years after Clement have taken over the entire Roman empire through Constantine. It was just an inevitable change.

Well, I'd like to give my friend Basil. Many of you who come here are in your own rights teachers. And I know many of you even have your own schools and so forth. And so, it's interesting, I wish we had time more often for you to get to know each other and understand the high quality of personages that are here. But in this, in this realm of the Greek language of that time, one of the most difficult areas is one covered by our friend here. And Basil has studied under several very, very prominent historians of this period. He's a specialist in Byzantine civilization. But he has a short three- or four-page writing that covers one of the most interesting areas of the time. I think I'll let him come in here for about 15 minutes and just give us that. This is Basil Jenkins and he's just one of us. Come and have this chair.

[inaudible]

As Roger said the Greek language is exceptional for the remarkable subtlety of philosophical expression that you find in it. And the [inaudible] that I'm about to give is a synopsis of a larger paper that I am going to publish soon on the celestial hierarchies of Dionysius the Pseudo Areopagite. This particular author had an enormous influence on Christian mystical thought over a very long period of time. And that the perception of celestial prayer follows what we just talked about with Clement. The transcendental to some metaphysical world became a world of reality. And so, it became a question is, what is it structured? What are the [inaudible] This is the importance of this.

The celestial hierarchies are called in Greek [inaudible] about the divine hierarchies the pseudo-Dionysius, the writer whom some scholars question ever having even existed. Some people believe that he may have been a Syrian monk. Others believe that he is an accumulation of various other authors.

Before we go on, I'll put down one other Greek phrase, which I think might be very useful in connection with the great Origen’s biblical exigent and theologian. Origen had a doctrine, which was especially fascinating called Apokatastasis. I wouldn’t win any prizes for my big calligraphy. Apokatastasis [inaudible] tone. [inaudible] I think so.

Apokatastasis [inaudible] tone means a simple return restoration of all things. We find this doctrine at a later time echoed in the writings of an Eastern Orthodox Saint named Isaac the Syrian, who on his death bed is being praised by his disciples. And they all said, Oh your so Holy father. And he replied, I have not yet begun to repent. God could save the devil himself if he's so willed.

This paper discuss discusses some of the Neoplatonic and early Christian antecedents for this celestial hierarchy by Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite.
The mystical author known as Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite who flourished about 500 A.D. combined very successfully Neoplatonic elements with Christianity in his writings. The agreeable synthesis accomplished by the Pseudo-Areopagite has exerted an enormous influence on Christian mysticism. The principle Neoplatonic source from which the Pseudo Dionysius borrowed was the work of Proclus.

Have you discussed a Proclus yet? [inaudible]
Proclus lived approximately in the late 5th century A.D. However, I will examine today less immediate patterns where the Pseudo-Dionysius’ Celestial Hierarchies, which defines the role of the nine orders of angels returning man to God. Gnosticism affords some precedent for the concept of grades of reconciliation to the divine. Valentinus of Alexandria, whom [inaudible] has mentioned today, who was the second, mid-second century writer was a typical Christian Gnostic. His system of descent and return can be outlined according to the following explanation.
From [inaudible] the unbegotten primeval father, God and perfect eon Sergey or silence, which is the thought in consciousness of [inaudible] is generated. Benthos and Sergey constitute the highest [inaudible] or [inaudible] and eon as a personified spiritual being according to this particular Gnostic interpretation.
There are many different levels of interpretation by many different types of Gnostics, both Christian and pagan Gnostics. And sometimes within the same school of thought levels of interpretation. Emanating [inaudible] from Benthos and Sergey our new Althea, Roger has mentioned represents truth. Logos, meaning the word idea. In the Greek language, the subtleties and nuances are so great that one word can have numerous meanings. A single verb in classical Greek we'll have as many as 500 inflections. It’s a monstrous but very wonderful language.

Zoe or life. Anthropos, man. And ecclesia personification of the church on a certain level. Zoe Anthropos and ecclesia emanate 30 eons in the pleroma or fullness outside of which there is [inaudible] emptiness. “Sophia, the lowest eon,” And this is very interesting, that wisdom is placed at the bottom of the scale. And Alethia truth is near the top of the scale.
Now attempts to generate an imitation of Benthos but because she is the lowest eon, Sophia cannot perfectly contemplate Benthos. Her emanation is the imperfect [inaudible] a corrupted being. Sophia, meanwhile, succeeds and freeing herself from the passions, which created [inaudible]. After Sophia attempt to generate an imitation of Benthos, Althea generated Christ to instruct the eons as to their true relationship to Benthos. Harmony was there by restored in the pleroma. And Christ generated the eon Jesus as the perfect food of the pleroma.

Certain Gnostics said that there was a great deal of difference between Jesus and Christ. And that one was a false, just a lusory figure and the other was a reality. Of course, the Greek term Cristos is a pre-Christian term. It was used extensively on the ancient pagan world.

The flawed [inaudible], however soon, generated the demiurge. A being made part of soul substance, or psyche [inaudible], or the soul who is the God of the Old Testament. The demiurge proceeded to create the material universe. Hence there are three, there are three gradations of substance. Pneuma, as Roger mentioned, spirit are sometimes identified with the Holy ghost, Psyche or something and matter.
Fortunately for Earthly man the demiurge provided him with psyche and [inaudible] gave him Pneuma. The eon Jesus next united with Earthly man in order that Earthly man might be returned to communion with higher worlds. Pneumatic man who is dialed with kenosis or knowledge can obtain the pleroma by comprehending the teaching of Jesus. A psychic or ordinary man can attain the world of the demiurge, but it's continually reincarnated. Carnal man suffers eternal damnation.

And the theory of Valentinus of Alexandria and many other Gnostics man's fall and return was thus the result of cosmic causes. And the celestial hierarchy Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite observes that there are nine orders of angelic beings acting as intermediaries between God and man. Divine illumination extends from God through lower orders of being to assist man to rise. As Pseudo Dionysus claims that these nine orders of angels are derived from the scriptures and the may very well be. Though they can be found also in other sources. They are found both in the Bible and the [inaudible]. The [inaudible] being those people who want out in the end against the so-called heretics. Most scholars believe, however that the origin of the nine orders of angel lives with Proclus. The Pseudo Dionysius certainly is much indebted to Proclus, although he maintains the integrity of the Orthodox or official Christian doctrine.

Notwithstanding that the emanation was understood in a very different sense by the Pseudo Dionysius than in its Christian Gnostic meaning. We find, for example, in the Christian Gnostic interpretation and the particular interpretation given us by Valentinus of Alexandria, that emanation is synonymous with generation. The Pseudo Dionysius uses emanation to signify equality or force, or creative energy. Emanation can further mean for the Pseudo Dionysius one of the persons of the Trinity being or an emanating principle. There is a certain affinity between Valentinus of Alexandria's system of descent and return and the operation of the nine orders of angels and returning man to God in its scheme of celestial hierarchy.

The Pseudo Dionysius details these divisions in the nine orders of angels, which correspond to the hierarchy of the church on Earth. Bishops, priests and deacons. Fundamentally these three divisions bear resemblance to the initial three stages of uncorrupted generation in the system of Valentinus.

Origen who lived in the late second and first half of the 3rd century A.D., the renowned Alexandria and theologian and [inaudible], formulated a system of Christian theology and Platonist terms, but was less successful than the Pseudo Dionysius in preserving the firmness of the conventional Christian doctrine. We find actually a reading Origen that he has all of the official doctrine of the church. And then he has everything contrary to it as well. Actually, last evening, I was speaking with a Serbian Orthodox priest, and I said, tonight, tomorrow night, I'll speak about Origen. And he said, oh, you must be very careful saying only what is true. Of course, that's according to your point of view.

According to Origen [inaudible] God, with the article [inaudible] God. But it means the one, the only God. Created the sun and a series of spiritual [inaudible]. These [inaudible] are like logos. You might call them wordlings. “Out of nothing, these beings burned with spiritual love, but they're burning love cooled off.” He uses the phrase [inaudible] for this, which is taken from the word connected with soul. Through sin [inaudible] and they became joined, two bodies. And here we have as it says in the scriptures of the word was made flesh, they become carnal.

“Only the son did not grow tepid and thus he alone retained the logos. Jesus Christ, therefore, shows the true way to unity with God through his teachings. Whereby one can renew spiritual warmth and avoid cooling off.” Origen also taught the doctrine of the restoration of welfare. [inaudible].

Have any of you ever seen the film, the Spanish filmmaker Luis Buñuel called Simon of The Desert. It’s extraordinary picture it's about [inaudible] who was an early very eccentric Eastern Orthodox Saint who lived on the top of a column in the desert, near the city of Aleppo. And he thought that he wanted to remove himself as far as he could from the sinful Earth. And the column was built a little bit higher by so-called pious Greeks who had sent him great funds from Constantinople. And he was many, many miles. [inaudible] Constantinople. He ended up standing, I think 60 feet above the ground. And he did this for something like about 50 or 60 years. And the Byzantine used to send emissaries to ask his advice on state questions, even though the man who was almost unlearned. [inaudible]. Yes, exactly. And he was very strange man. Once this sort of disgusting story that tells he was standing on one leg to practice this austerities and vermin got into his leg and an ulcer, and they fell out and he picked them up and put them back and said, eat what God has given you. To serve his great power over the bottle as it were. I guess.

But anyway, in the film, by the Luis Buñuel, monks come out of the desert, and they start a typical controversy beneath the pillar at this period, because as one Greek writer of this time says, you ask the price of a pair of shoes, and you get the reply, the father is greater than the son. And you ask how much is the bread? And the answer comes back. The son was begotten of nothing. So, all of these monks gathered round the basis, pillar of the film. And they started shouting some of them up [inaudible]. Others down upper [inaudible]. It's all contending against the ideas of Origen or for them. Then one monk from the back screams out, what is [inaudible].

The belief in [inaudible] and the interpretation of Origen held that the souls of those who have sinned, including Satan, will be purified by fire in hell through death. All souls will go to paradise following this purification, but they will be schooled in the problems of the world there, since they are not yet perfect spiritual beings. They must be restored to a condition of whole [inaudible]. This is the condition in which you are in harmony with higher ideals. And then Christ's second coming will arrive in the resurrection of all men, as Holy spiritual beings will occur. You can see that Origen was in this aspect of his thought very closely allied with traditional, what became traditional Orthodox Christianity.

“God will be all in all”. So here we have [inaudible] tone [inaudible], which is extremely different than say for on the poetry of a Greek poet, like [inaudible]. A pagan poet, who said [inaudible]. Or all his laughter dust or nothingness of unreason born. Rather than all, all in all.

There were however other worlds before this one and there will be other worlds after it in an eternal procession. Which I think gives a little more hope than what one has to expect from the moral majority or conventional extreme Christianity. Origen’s cyclical theory is obviously related to the notion of a gradual return to God through successive stages.

The Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus who lived in the 3rd century A.D. was with Origen a fellow pupil of Ammonius Saccas. So, Plotinus God or the one called [inaudible] emanates its own spiritual essence. I once had a very eccentric professor, and I would go into him, and he would be staring off into space. And I would say is everything all right? And he would reply, yes, I'm contemplating forms. [inaudible] taking form.

The one communicates its spiritual being to various descending beings. This process is an overflowing of love and goodness, rather than a corruption of the Supreme being as in Gnosticism. [inaudible] the impersonal Supreme being imparts itself to [inaudible]. The world of [inaudible] ideas or forms and is passed on to [inaudible] to carry the soul. The higher soul of ideas, which is distinguished from [inaudible] or nature. The lower soul responsible for, for the material order. Without [inaudible] matter is not being and thus not evil. Since [inaudible] is part of [inaudible], which is composed as spirit and matter.

Plotinus explained that every man is an emanation from [inaudible] and is thereby a mixture of spirit and matter. Man must therefore try to free himself of matter and rise to the level of [inaudible]. Where he will still be conscious of himself. The culmination of a man's elevation as a mystical union with [inaudible] accompanied by an ecstasy in which subject and object lose their meaning. Which is certainly completely in harmony with all types of mystical teaching in which there is no separation between God and the creature that is really no creature. It is the same thing. The connection between Plotinus’ philosophy and mysticism and the views of the Pseudo-Dionysius are the most apparent of all of these antecedents. Thank you.

You can see readily that the world had changed from an empire of swords and shields in that time frame was a complete conversion. So that the exploration became an exploration of the transcendental realms. And of course, the difficulty then at that time, as ever, was to find one's way through. To make some sort of an initial choice of a direction that one would like to move along for one's own growth of integrity and to seek instruction along these lines. So, the next three lectures closing out the series will try to take three other realms other than the realms presented by Clement and Origen to show you that the world at that time shared by all these individuals opened up a very, very, very many great paths.

The lecture next week will be on the Hermetic literature. They writings of attributed to Hermes Trismegistus came up about this time. And the lecture after that, we'll take up the meditations of Marcus Aurelius because there's still was a certain integrity and the stoic classical world. And then we will also look at Plotinus a little bit. I've lectured, I think two or three times on Plotinus already. I'll try to catch some aspects of The Aeneid, which we hadn't caught before. And then we'll return the final lecture of this particular series to show the way in which Christianity at the time of Constantine, not only triumphed but triumphed in a way of transposing the entire city of Rome to another location. And what we'll see. I hope in the course after that, how this transposition went even further and that one had finally a city of God instead of a city of man. That there wasn't any location on the planet that could hold man's religious vision any longer. And that happened long before there were space ships.

So next week we'll take a look at the Hermetic literature, The Corpus Hermetica, especially The Poimandries and Asclepius. And this also comes from our famous city of Alexandria.
Those who like a little more background on Alexandra. I think we have a cassette, a two-hour cassette, available on a lecture I gave on Ptolemaic Alexandria, which may help to give you some of the background if you don't have it.

Thanks for coming and bearing with us. I'm glad that we could come down here. I always like to come down to the library. I wish we didn't have these bright lights, but we had to have them tonight. So, I hope to see you next week here.

Thanks.

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