Revelation of the Mystery of the Cross

from the Acts of John


After the Lord had danced with us, my beloved, he went out. And we were like men amazed or fast asleep, and we fled this way and that. And so I saw him suffer, and did not wait by his suffering , but fled to the Mount of Olives and wept at what had come to pass. And when he was hung upon the cross on Friday, at the sixth hour of the day there came a darkness over the whole earth. And my Lord stood in the middle of the cavve and gave light to it and said, "John, for the people below in Jerusalem. I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and gall to drink. But to you ¡ am speaking, and listen to what i speak. I put into your mind to come up to this mountain so that you may hear what a disciple should learn from his teacher and a man of God." And when he had said this he showed me a cross of light firmly fixed , and around the cross a great crowd, which had no single form; and in the cross was another form and the same likeness. And I saw the Lord himself above the cross, having no shape but only a kind of voice; yet not that voice that we knew, but one that was sweet and gentle and truly the voice of God, which said to me: "John, there must be one man to hear these things from me: for I need one who is ready to hear. This cross of Light is sometimes called logos by me for your sakes, sometimes Mind, sometimes Jesus, Sometimes Christ, Sometimes a door, sometimes a way, sometimes bread, sometimes seed, sometimes ressurrection, sometimes Son, sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes Life, sometimes Truth, Sometimes Pistis(Faith), sometimes Charis(grace); and so is it called for man´s sake."

"But what it truly is, as known in itself and spoken to us, is this; It is the distinction of all things; and the strong uplifting of what is firmly fixed out of what is unstable, and the harmony of Wisdom, being Wisdom in harmony. But there are places on the right and on the left, Powers, Authorities, Principalities and demons, threatenings,passions,devils, Satan, and the inferior root from which the nature of transient things proceeded." "This cross then is that which has united all things by the word and which has seperated off what is transitory and inferior, which has also compacted things into one. But this is not that wooden cross which you shall see when you go down from here; nor am I the man who is upon that cross. I whom now you do not see but only hear my voice. I was taken to be what I am not, I who am not what for many others I was; but what they will say of me is mean and unworthy of me. Since then the place of my rest is neither to be seen nor told, much more shall I, the Lord of this place, be neither seen nor told." "The multitude around the cross that is not of one form is the inferior nature. And those whom you saw in the cross, even if they have not yet one form - not every member of him who has come down has yet been gathered together. But when human nature is taken up , and the race that comes to me and obeys my voice, then he who now hears me shall be united with this race and shall no longer be what he now is, but shall be above them as I am now. For so long as you do not call yourself mine, I am not what I am, but if you hear me, you also as hearer shall be what I was, when you are as I am with myself, ;for from me you are what I am. Therefore ignore the many and despise those who are outside of the mystery; for you must know that I am wholly with the Father, and the Father with me.".

"So then I have suffered none of those things which they will say of me; even that suffering which I showed you and the rest in my dance, I will that it be called a mystery. For what you are, that I have shown you, as you see; but what I am is known to me alone, and no one else. Let me have what is mine; what ¡s yours you must see through me; but me you must see truly- not that which I am, as I said, but that which you, as my kinsman, are able to know. You hear that I suffered, yet I suffered not; and that I suffered not, yet did I suffer; annd that I was pierced , yet i was not wounded; that I was hanged, yet I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me; yet it did not flow, and, in a word, that what they say of me, I did not endure, but what they do not say, those things I did suffer. Now what these are, I secretly show you; for I know you will understand. You must know me, then, as a torment of the logos, the blood of the logos, the wounding of logos, the fastening of the logos, the death of the logos. And so I speak, discarding the manhood. The first then that you shall know is the Logos, then you shall know the Lord, and thirdly the man, and what he has suffered."

When he had said these things to me, and others which I know not how to say as he wills, he was taken up, without any of the multitude seeing him. And going down I laughed at them all, since he had told me what they said about him; and I held this one thing fast in my mind, that the Lord had performed everything as a symbol(sign) and a dispensation for the conversion and salvation of man. 

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