Of course this process is as much internal as it is found in nature, and as such it has been described in both masculine and feminine terms. The divinization of the human person is not only exemplified through Christ the Logos Incarnate, but is seen in the image of Mary who has been made a sharer in the Divine through Christ and the Holy Spirit in her role as Theotokos; the ‘God-bearer’. (See: Twelve Anathemas Proposed by Cyril and accepted by the Council of Ephesus) Some name Mary the “Co-Redemptrix.” Still others, including many Gnostics believe that the Wisdom of God or Sophia was also manifested in a human person in the form of Holy Mary of Magdala (St. Mary Magdalene). These are of course not mutually exclusive in the least; neither would the spiritual reality be diminished if we never prove their historical existence.
In the words of the late pope John Paul II, “[Mary, Mother of God] is an icon of the Church, the symbol and anticipation of humanity transfigured by grace, the model and the unfailing hope for all those who direct their steps toward the heavenly Jerusalem.”
These steps toward the New Jerusalem are the very same steps that we take to work every day. Every door that we pass through, every face that we see can remind us of the progress (or stagnation) of that portion of us which defies description. And it is precisely here, on this path – historically known as the Imitiatio Christi or Imitatio Mariae that I think many gnostics are in danger of confusing two important concepts. The way to theosis is not gnosis. The way to divinization is not the divine knowledge/experience. Gnosis is essential to shedding light on who we are and where we are going, but it is not the verb. Love, charity and solidarity are the actions that get us to where we belong. Monsignor Scott Rassbach recently wrote that gnosis is salvation, and that “It saves us from ourselves. It saves us from the anti-life, anti-humanity, anti-virtue culture.” All true, but still gnosis is a kind of heightened awareness, and not all that is needed. The proof of the pudding is in the eating – we need to exemplify that awareness through action; a point that is certainly not lost on Monsignor Rassbach.
Consider St. Paul, much-maligned in gnostic circles because of the Pastoral Epistles, but if we choose a text which is considered to be original, unredacted Pauline teaching such as the Corinthian letters, we begin to see a definite line of continuity between Pauline teachings and those of the community of St. John the Beloved.
If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. (1 Cor. 13:2)
When reading this text, it’s important to remember that the word used for “knowledge” here is γνῶσιν (gnosin) the accusative, feminine form of gnosis. Neither faith nor gnosis is good enough. This is as much a lesson for Gnostics as for mainstream Christians. Your faith isn’t enough, and neither is our gnosis. So if the way to divinization is love, then Christ and Mary are the personifications of love, and this is how we can begin to comprehend what Christ meant when he is supposed to have said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6) He was not saying that if you’re not a Christian you are going to hell. He is describing himself as the perfect model of our path to work every morning. And again love is at the core of the model: This I command you, that you love one another. (John 15:17) It’s interesting to note that in the first chapter of the Gospel of John, the original Latin phrase used for the English translation “In the beginning was the Word” (Logos) is the Johannite motto: In principio erat Verbum. This could just as easily have been written: “In the beginning was Love.”
I personally think that any focus on apotheosis as opposed to theosis may be premature in most cases if not outright dangerous. Apotheosis, a word batted about in many gnostic discussions, literally means ‘to become a god’. In ancient Rome the title “Divo” or “Diva” was applied to those humans who were pronounced gods, similar to the Greek and Egyptian concepts of deification centuries earlier. Perhaps I’m limiting myself, but I think that it is enough for me to work on hamartía (missing the mark), beginning with each ‘dawn of the mystical day.’
In the Hermetic texts such as Pimander, there is section which treats the “beginning” and the themes which St. John and St. Paul described in the New Testament.
“Earth was as woman, her water filled with longing; ripeness she took from Fire, spirit from ether. Nature thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man. And Man from Light and Life changed into soul and mind - from Life to soul, from Light to mind….And straightway God spake by His Holy Word (Logos): “Increase ye in increasing, and multiply in multitude, ye creatures and creations all; and man that hath Mind in him, let him learn to know that he himself is deathless, and that the cause of death is love, though Love is all.” (Corpus Hermeticum “Pimander” I.17)
Here we see not only the central role of love, but the added bonus of a hint towards the reconciliation between science and religion. “Nature thus brought forth frames to suit the form of Man” sounds very much like an attempt to portray an evolutionary process. Following the contours of nature and recognizing that spiritual and material worlds do possess similar structures leads me to contemplate the importance of humility along the spiritual path. Hierarchies on both planes were evident in the thoughts of Hermes Trismegistus as well as Christian theologians such as St. Dionysius the Areopagite who appreciated and articulated a profound respect for what he termed the “God-becoming beauty” which perfects us through Divine initiation, and in ways that are unique to the seeker’s abilities, strengths and weaknesses. (Dionysius the Areopagite, The Heavenly Hierarchy, III., 1)
On this Annunciation day, we begin the cycle of both physical and spiritual development following the ancient imitation of Christ and “Mary, Mother of the star that never sets, dawn of the mystical day, rising of the Sun of glory, shows us the Light of the East. Every day in the East the Sun of hope rises again, the Light that restores life to the human race.” (Orientale Lumen by Pope John Paul II, 2 May 1995, Based on Akathistos and the Horologion, Sunday Compline in the Byzantine Liturgy).
