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Sample interpretation of On the Origin of the World



-- This text begins with an antithetical stance to the Greek creation story. According to Hesiod,



-- This is also a hint early on that it is going to be antithetical to the first creation story in Genesis, specifically verse 1:2.



This open verse begins by saying that this stance is wrong.



-- This line begins with trying to explain what chaos is. According to this text, chaos is not darkness but a shadow. The distinction between darkness and shadow is very subtle. To say that something is darkness implies that there is nothing there but to say something is a shadow implies that there is a source to it. Though both are symbols representing ignorance, darkness is an ignorance based on nothing preceding it while the other is an ignorance based on a predecessor. Since chaos is being described as a shadow, this means that something created chaos.



-- Though a portion of the text is missing I will try to interpret it the best I can with what is given. This section begins with hinting at a emanation cosmology. Now an emanation cosmology is important in Gnosticism because it preserves monotheism in that each emanation is God yet each emanation is distinct from each other. The next note that needs to be addressed is that creation stories are often cosmic scale representations of the human condition.

-- We know that there was something before Pistis but not told anything directly about it. This is possibly because God is incomprehensible but this is purely speculation. Πίστις (Pistis) is a Greek word meaning “conviction of the truth of anything”, “belief with the predominate idea of trust” (particularly with God in this case), “fidelity”, and “faithfulness (in regards to being able to rely on someone)”, just to give a few. The next person spoken of is Sophia. Σοφία (Sophia) is a Greek word meaning “divine wisdom” and “wisdom of men acquired by experience or revelation” again just to name a few.

-- This passage begins with Pistis possibly because first faith is needed to start any task. By placing trust in God and our senses we arrive are able to obtain wisdom. Now the ending of this passage is alluding to Sophia making some sort of error. Though her error, she resembles her former state but she is not her former state. She became a veil dividing man and God. This is possibly an allusion to 2 Corinthians 3:13. These emanations are female because they are both related to human intuition. Intuition is believed to be human’s link to the divine, since intuition is the source of all things.

Sources for the translation come from the Greek Lexicon from Search God's Word

Seeing how many people say that the creation accounts (yes there are two accounts of Creation in Genesis.) are metaphorical yet are unable to explain how it's metaphorical. I decided to take my hand at it. The broad view explained to me concerning creation accounts is that they use cultural symbolism and allegory to explain who we are and how we came to be. Keeping this in mind I will attempt to give a commentary explaining the first creation account listed in Genesis 1:1-2:3



The first thing we formulate is that there is a distinction between the mental and physical. There is stuff going on inside and stuff going on outside. I make two personal changes here. "'Elohiym" is typically translated as God but the more culturally appropriate word here would be "the gods" or "pantheon" since this is a Hebrew variation of a Sumerian creation account (possibly of El and his gods). While traditional translations of "bara'" use "create" I noticed in the Lexicon that "bara'"(qal) means "to shape, fashion, or create". I modified these words to possibly illustrate why Valentinius didn't see any conflict with Genesis and his cosmology.



The earth's formlessness represents all this physical stuff we see is just stuff initially we make no distinction between anything. Since it's just there and meaningless it is quite literally "void" to us. The darkness represents that the ignorance of this lack of distinction is there. One Hebrew meaning of water worth mentioning is abyss or chaos. Ignorance and chaos for the most part go hand in hand. We have this world that consists of stuff we cannot distinguish, of course we are going to be ignorant given that without being able to distinguish anything, anything is everything and everything is anything. The word translated as "spirit" is "ruwach" which means also "mind" "breath" or "wind". A Hebrew symbol for this word is life since intuitively all living things breathe. Describing this spirit as spirit of the Gods denotes that this life is divine and a necessary component to making sense of the abyss and chaos.



The first step to making sense of this chaos is establishing that truth (light) exists. Truth has to exist since there is existence because how can one say "I exist" is true if there is no Truth?



We see here that it's established that Truth is a good thing and rightly so otherwise existence would be an illusion at best. It is distinct from ignorance which can be either illusions or falsity.



From truth we can begin to formulate things. Day is when people work and move, the progress of life ensues. When we reach a point when we cannot access truth we must rest. It is night when the progress of life and seeking truth suspends and people rest until truth comes again.

The first cycle of truth is now established to recap we establish that there is stuff that is physical and stuff that is mental. With truth we can begin start making sense of this physical and mental stuff. This process of discerning truth is cyclical in that we can only proceed and progress when there is truth and we can only rest and wait when truth is not present or discernible. After a period of ignorance, ignorance disappears. The first cycle is complete.



So we have this chaotic abyss. Now that know that truth exists one can start examining this abyss so we can start pointing out things. So instead of one huge chaotic abyss we now see that there is really two chaotic abysses.



One of these chaotic abyss is above the other one indicating that one abyss that is special and "higher" than the other abyss. And you have a abyss that is foundational and "lower". These abysses are distinct but these two abysses of chaos need the other. One abyss must rule and the other abyss must support.



This higher abyss is supported by a firmament called heaven indicating that whatever is in this higher abyss is mental. It also establishes that mental substances rule over physical substances and physcial substance support mental substances.

To recap, we see that this abyss is actually two abysses. One of these abyss is superior to the other abyss but the other abyss supports the ruling abyss. The ruling abyss is mental in substance and the supporting abyss is physical. We end the second cycle of truth discerning.

From day one we have this one abyss and to day two we now have two realms and two abysses



This physical abyss is now further delineated. We still have this abyss that we still can't completely distinguish other than that we know it's unknown and mostly indiscernible and we have this physical stuff that we can examine and know, such as what our senses can perceive.



Basically establishing that there is stuff that we know and there are things we don't know is good in that it aids in ones progression to discerning truth.



Basically so of the things that we know we can build off of. When we build something true from the things we know true things will come from it. When we build something false from the things that we know false things will come fro it.



It aids in the progression of discerning truth when we can build off of things we know and the things that come forth resemble and relate to what we know. This means we are being consistent and in the event of seeing something false, we can backtrack to find out what the "parent" of this falsity is.



The third epoch of truth has passed and it is established that there are things we know and things we don't know. The things we know can be detected by our senses. We can build things from what we know and what comes from these things will resemble where it came from. We now have three realms. We have a realm of mental abyss, an abyss of stuff we don't know, and a realm of stuff we know.



Mentally, in the progression of truth, there are signals which alert us when we are in the progressing in truth and when we are resting until truth becomes apparent again. There are certain mental patterns that signal when progression is initiating, what stage of progression we are on, how long this progression will last, when progression will stall, and finally how long progression will be stalled until it re-initiates again.



These mental signals can be physically detected and are discernible by our senses.



The two great lights are the sun and the moon. The sun represents truth that is glaringly obvious to us. The moon represents subtle truth. Truth that is only obvious at certain times during moments of rest. Stars represents ideals that should be aimed for that are mostly present during periods of ignorance but could also be made known during periods of truth progression.



It aids us in our journey of truth seeking to be able to distinguish when we can progress and when we need to rest.



The fourth period is passed. We have now established that there are mental cues delineating when one can find truth whether it be revealed or hidden, and that there are ideals to shoot for often in periods of ignorance but sometimes in periods of revelation. We now have a stable plane to work from since in Hebrew tradition four is considered a sacred number of stability. You have a mental abyss, an abyss of physical things unknown, a realm of things known, and finally tools within the mental abyss so truth and its progression can be tracked.



Now we start getting into fine details. Within the physical and mental abyss there is stuff going on. You have life that goes on in the physical things we don't know about and we have a life going on in our personal mental abyss consciously and subconsciously.



The things that dwell in the mental and physical abysses resemble the pattern of how vegetation functions on land. If we dive into the unknown realms of our mind and the world unknown, we can follow a simililar pattern like we do concerning to discern what is true.



These mental and physical things that dwell in their respective abysses will continue to expand in number. These things are blessed in that without these creatures we would not be able to make sense of either abyss.



So recapping the fifth period. We now know something about our two great unknowns. There is stuff going on in the mental and physical abysses respectively, we can point out these things going on in the abysses and stuff going on follows a pattern of expansion like the things that we know do. We have five spheres of influence: Truth exists, There is unknown physical and mental things, There are things physically we know and don't know, There is a way to discern and track truth and it's progression, and we can examine and explore the abysses of the mental and physical unknowns since they follow a similar pattern of the things we know.



This here is the formulation of instincts. We have three drives listed here. Cattle would be our drive to follow, our herd/pack mentality. Creeping things would be our drive to survive, our ability to adapt to whatever situation arises. Beasts would be our instint to act, when the need to do something arises. These drives individually build upon each other and are listed together as creatures since they are interrelated to each other.



In general instincts are good. They help us survive without having to think quite literally. Of course there's some drawbacks to this but the solution to this is coming up.



I wonder if Christ also had this verse in mind also when he said, "we are gods". The gods made the component of "man" to rule over all these aspects. Man is a symbol for the human perspective and human experience. It is our perspective that allows us to understand information we gather and to keep our instincts in check. It is this component here that makes us human.



So mankind is basically an image of these gods. They are made in thier likeness with all the quirks associated with them. Male and female represents two aspects that all of mankind shares. Male being active and female being passive (not literally of course, just working with the cultural understanding of binary gender).



Here we are given the divine mission. To live the human experience, to continue the human experience, and to have control over ourselves. We have control over the things we speculate about in the great unknowns of our minds and the things we don't know about in our world. We also have control over how we react to our instincts.



Here in context as man being a symbol of the human experience, that all knowledge is available for use. It is "food" for the human experience.



Translation we learn from everything. We learn from instincts, from our speculations, from the things we know. Green plants represents understanding that is living and vibrant. Our understanding of things needs to remain "fresh".



The sixth cycle has completed. We have various instincts and finally a steward to tie everything together. You have the human experience which controls instincts, knowledge of the unknown mind, knowledge of the unknown world, and knowledge of the known world. Each human experience is unique but shares a commonality expressed as a polarity of the active and passive components.



So we have defined a good chunk of what makes up the human experience and builds it up. Not much else to discuss.



The resting of the gods symbolizes a few things. It symbolizes that they are allowing mankind to be responsible for thier experiences. It symbolizes that there are periods of "breaks" one can take in the human experience and that these breaks are a good thing. It also hints at eventually being an "eighth day" when they will have to stop resting. When that spark will awaken and one can leave these tasks behind and the gods will have to act again.



Reaching the "seventh" day in the human experience is a joyous time as well as a well earned rest. It is during the seventh day that one can look back on what has been gathered and let it run it's course to test it's worth. Will the Seventh day lead to an Eight day or back to Day One?