Sermo I
The dead came back from Jerusalem, where they
found not what they sought.
They prayed me let them in and besought my
word, and thus I began my teaching.
Harken: I begin with nothingness.
Nothingness is the same as fullness.
In infinity full is no better than empty.
Nothingness is both empty and full.
As well might ye say anything else of nothingness,
as for instance, white is it, or black, or
again, it is not, or it is.
A thing that is infinite and eternal hath
no qualities, since it hath all qualities.
This nothingness or fullness we name the PLEROMA.
Therein both thinking and being cease, since
the eternal and infinite possess no qualities.
In it no being is, for he then would be distinct
from the pleroma, and would possess qualities
which would distinguish him as something distinct
from the pleroma.
In the pleroma there is nothing and everything.
It is quite fruitless to think about the pleroma,
for this would mean self-dissolution.
CREATURA is not in the pleroma, but in itself.
The pleroma is both beginning and end of created
beings.
It pervadeth them, as the light of the sun
everywhere pervadeth the air.
Although the pleroma pervadeth altogether,
yet hath created being no share thereof, just
as a wholly transparent body becometh neither
light nor dark through the light which pervadeth
it.
We are, however, the pleroma itself, for we
are a part of the eternal and infinite.
But we have no share thereof, as we are from
the pleroma infinitely removed; not spiritually
or temporally, but essentially, since we are
distinguished from the pleroma in our essence
as creatura, which is confined within time
and space.
Yet because we are parts of the pleroma, the
pleroma is also in us.
Even in the smallest point is the pleroma
endless, eternal, and entire, since small
and great are qualities which are contained
in it.
It is that nothingness which is everywhere
whole and continuous.
Only figuratively, therefore, do I speak of
created being as a part of the pleroma.
Because, actually, the pleroma is nowhere
divided, since it is nothingness.
We are also the whole pleroma, because, figuratively,
the pleroma is the smallest point (assumed
only, not existing) in us and the boundless
firmament about us.
But wherefore, then, do we speak of the pleroma
at all, since it is thus everything and nothing?
I speak of it to make a beginning somewhere,
and also to free you from the delusion that
somewhere, either without or within, there
standeth something fixed, or in some way established,
from the beginning.
Every so-called fixed and certain thing is
only relative.
That alone is fixed and certain which is subject
to change.
What is changeable, however, is creatura.
Therefore is it the one thing which is fixed
and certain; because it hath qualities: it
is even quality itself.
The question ariseth: How did creatura originate?
Created beings came to pass, not creatura;
since created being is the very quality of
the pleroma, as much as non-creation which
is the eternal death.
In all times and places is creation, in all
times and places is death.
The pleroma hath all, distinctiveness and
non-distinctiveness.
Distinctiveness is creatura.
It is distinct.
Distinctiveness is its essence, and therefore
it distinguisheth.
Therefore man discriminateth because his nature
is distinctiveness.
Wherefore also he distinguisheth qualities
of the pleroma which are not.
He distinguisheth them out of his own nature.
Therefore must he speak of qualities of the
pleroma which are not.
What use, say ye, to speak of it?
Saidst thou not thyself, there is no profit
in thinking upon the pleroma?
That said I unto you, to free you from the
delusion that we are able to think about the
pleroma.
When we distinguish qualities of the pleroma,
we are speaking from the ground of our own
distinctiveness and concerning our own distinctiveness.
But we have said nothing concerning the pleroma.
Concerning our own distinctiveness, however,
it is needful to speak, whereby we may distinguish
ourselves enough.
Our very nature is distinctiveness.
If we are not true to this nature we do not
distinguish ourselves enough.
Therefore must we make distinctions of qualities.
What is the harm, ye ask, in not distinguishing
oneself?
If we do not distinguish, we get beyond our
own nature, away from creatura.
We fall into indistinctiveness, which is the
other quality of the pleroma.
We fall into the pleroma itself and cease
to be creatures.
We are given over to dissolution in the nothingness.
This is the death of the creature.
Therefore we die in such measure as we do
not distinguish.
Hence the natural striving of the creature
goeth towards distinctiveness, fighteth against
primeval, perilous sameness.
This is called the principium individuationis.
This principle is the essence of the creature.
From this you can see why indistinctiveness
and non-distinction are a great danger for
the creature.
We must, therefore, distinguish the qualities
of the pleroma.
The qualities are pairs of opposites, such
as—
The Effective and the Ineffective.
Fullness and Emptiness.
Living and Dead.
Difference and Sameness.
Light and Darkness.
The Hot and the Cold.
Force and Matter.
Time and Space.
Good and Evil.
Beauty and Ugliness.
The One and the Many.
etc.
The pairs of opposites are qualities of the
pleroma which are not, because each balanceth
each.
As we are the pleroma itself, we also have
all these qualities in us.
Because the very ground of our nature is distinctiveness,
therefore we have these qualities in the name
and sign of distinctiveness, which meaneth—
1.
These qualities are distinct and separate
in us one from the other; therefore they are
not balanced and void, but are effective.
Thus are we the victims of the pairs of opposites.
The pleroma is rent in us.
2.
The qualities belong to the pleroma, and only
in the name and sign of distinctiveness can
and must we possess or live them.
We must distinguish ourselves from qualities.
In the pleroma they are balanced and void;
in us not.
Being distinguished from them delivereth us.
When we strive after the good or the beautiful,
we thereby forget our own nature, which is
distinctiveness, and we are delivered over
to the qualities of the pleroma, which are
pairs of opposites.
We labor to attain to the good and the beautiful,
yet at the same time we also lay hold of the
evil and the ugly, since in the pleroma these
are one with the good and the beautiful.
When, however, we remain true to our own nature,
which is distinctiveness, we distinguish ourselves
from the good and the beautiful, and, therefore,
at the same time, from the evil and the ugly.
And thus we fall not into the pleroma, namely,
into nothingness and dissolution.
Thou sayest, ye object, that difference and
sameness are also qualities of the pleroma.
How would it be, then, if we strive after
difference?
Are we, in so doing, not true to our own nature?
And must we none the less be given over to
sameness when we strive after difference?
Ye must not forget that the pleroma hath no
qualities.
We create them through thinking.
If, therefore, ye strive after difference
or sameness, or any qualities whatsoever,
ye pursue thoughts which flow to you out of
the pleroma; thoughts, namely, concerning
non-existing qualities of the pleroma.
Inasmuch as ye run after these thoughts, ye
fall again into the pleroma, and reach difference
and sameness at the same time.
Not your thinking, but your being, is distinctiveness.
Therefore not after difference, as ye think
it, must ye strive; but after your own being.
At bottom, therefore, there is only one striving,
namely, the striving after your own being.
If ye had this striving ye would not need
to know anything about the pleroma and its
qualities, and yet would ye come to your right
goal by virtue of your own being.
Since, however, thought estrangeth from being,
that knowledge must I teach you wherewith
ye may be able to hold your thought in leash.
Sermo II
In the night the dead stood along the wall
and cried:
We would have knowledge of god.
Where is god?
Is god dead?
God is not dead.
Now, as ever, he liveth.
God is creatura, for he is something definite,
and therefore distinct from the pleroma.
God is quality of the pleroma, and everything
which I said of creatura also is true concerning
him.
He is distinguished, however, from created
beings through this, that he is more indefinite
and indeterminable than they.
He is less distinct than created beings, since
the ground of his being is effective fullness.
Only in so far as he is definite and distinct
is he creatura, and in like measure is he
the manifestation of the effective fullness
of the pleroma.
Everything which we do not distinguish falleth
into the pleroma and is made void by its opposite.
If, therefore, we do not distinguish god,
effective fullness is for us extinguished.
Moreover god is the pleroma itself, as likewise
each smallest point in the created and uncreated
is the pleroma itself.
Effective void is the nature of the devil.
God and devil are the first manifestations
of nothingness, which we call the pleroma.
It is indifferent whether the pleroma is or
is not, since in everything it is balanced
and void.
Not so creatura.
In so far as god and devil are creatura they
do not extinguish each other, but stand one
against the other as effective opposites.
We need no proof of their existence.
It is enough that we must always be speaking
of them.
Even if both were not, creatura, of its own
essential distinctiveness, would forever distinguish
them anew out of the pleroma.
Everything that discrimination taketh out
of the pleroma is a pair of opposites.
To god, therefore, always belongeth the devil.
This inseparability is as close and, as your
own life hath made you see, as indissoluble
as the pleroma itself.
Thus it is that both stand very close to the
pleroma, in which all opposites are extinguished
and joined.
God and devil are distinguished by the qualities
fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction.
Effectiveness is common to both.
Effectiveness joineth them.
Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both;
is a god above god, since in its effect it
uniteth fullness and emptiness.
This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind
forgot it.
We name it by its name Abraxas.
It is more indefinite still than god and devil.
That god may be distinguished from it, we
name god Helios or Sun.
Abraxas is effect.
Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective;
hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth
itself.
The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth
not.
Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the
devil.
It is improbable probability, unreal reality.
Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be
its manifestation.
It is the effective itself, not any particular
effect, but effect in general.
It is unreal reality, because it hath no definite
effect.
It is also creatura, because it is distinct
from the pleroma.
The sun hath a definite effect, and so hath
the devil.
Wherefore do they appear to us more effective
than indefinite Abraxas.
It is force, duration, change.
The dead now raised a great tumult, for they
were Christians.
Sermo III
Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead
came near and cried: Speak further unto us
concerning the supreme god.
Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas.
Its power is the greatest, because man perceiveth
it not.
From the sun he draweth the summum bonum;
from the devil the infimum malum; but from
Abraxas life, altogether indefinite, the mother
of good and evil.
Smaller and weaker life seemeth to be than
the summum bonum; wherefore is it also hard
to conceive that Abraxas transcendeth even
the sun in power, who is himself the radiant
source of all the force of life.
Abraxas is the sun, and at the same time the
eternally sucking gorge of the void, the belittling
and dismembering devil.
The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see
it not, because for your eyes the warring
opposites of this power are extinguished.
What the god-sun speaketh is life.
What the devil speaketh is death.
But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed
word which is life and death at the same time.
Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and
evil, light and darkness, in the same word
and in the same act.
Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.
It is splendid as the lion in the instant
he striketh down his victim.
It is beautiful as a day of spring.
It is the great Pan himself and also the small
one.
It is Priapos.
It is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed
polyp, coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy.
It is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning.
It is the lord of the toads and frogs, which
live in the water and go up on the land, whose
chorus ascendeth at noon and at midnight.
It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness.
It is holy begetting.
It is love and love’s murder.
It is the saint and his betrayer.
It is the brightest light of day and the darkest
night of madness.
To look upon it, is blindness.
To know it, is sickness.
To worship it, is death.
To fear it, is wisdom.
To resist it not, is redemption.
God dwelleth behind the sun, the devil behind
the night.
What god bringeth forth out of the light the
devil sucketh into the night.
But Abraxas is the world, its becoming and
its passing.
Upon every gift that cometh from the god-sun
the devil layeth his curse.
Everything that ye entreat from the god-sun
begetteth a deed of the devil.
Everything that ye create with the god-sun
giveth effective power to the devil.
That is terrible Abraxas.
It is the mightiest creature, and in it the
creature is afraid of itself.
It is the manifest opposition of creatura
to the pleroma and its nothingness.
It is the son’s horror of the mother.
It is the mother’s love for the son.
It is the delight of the earth and the cruelty
of the heavens.
Before its countenance man becometh like stone.
Before it there is no question and no reply.
It is the life of creatura.
It is the operation of distinctiveness.
It is the love of man.
It is the speech of man.
It is the appearance and the shadow of man.
It is illusory reality.
Now the dead howled and raged, for they were
unperfected.
Sermo IV
The dead filled the place murmuring and said:
Tell us of gods and devils, accursed one!
The god-sun is the highest good; the devil
is the opposite.
Thus have ye two gods.
But there are many high and good things and
many great evils.
Among these are two god-devils; the one is
the burning one, the other the growing one.
The burning one is eros, who hath the form
of flame.
Flame giveth light because it consumeth.
The growing one is the tree of life.
It buddeth, as in growing it heapeth up living
stuff.
Eros flameth up and dieth.
But the tree of life groweth with slow and
constant increase through unmeasured time.
Good and evil are united in the flame.
Good and evil are united in the increase of
the tree.
In their divinity stand life and love opposed.
Innumerable as the host of the stars is the
number of gods and devils.
Each star is a god, and each space that a
star filleth is a devil.
But the empty-fullness of the whole is the
pleroma.
The operation of the whole is Abraxas, to
whom only the ineffective standeth opposed.
Four is the number of the principal gods,
as four is the number of the world’s measurements.
One is the beginning, the god-sun.
Two is Eros; for he bindeth twain together
and outspreadeth himself in brightness.
Three is the Tree of Life, for it filleth
space with bodily forms.
Four is the devil, for he openeth all that
is closed.
All that is formed of bodily nature doth he
dissolve; he is the destroyer in whom everything
is brought to nothing.
For me, to whom knowledge hath been given
of the multiplicity and diversity of the gods,
it is well.
But woe unto you, who replace these incompatible
many by a single god.
For in so doing ye beget the torment which
is bred from not understanding, and ye mutilate
the creature whose nature and aim is distinctiveness.
How can ye be true to your own nature when
ye try to change the many into one?
What ye do unto the gods is done likewise
unto you.
Ye all become equal and thus is your nature
maimed.
Equality shall prevail not for god, but only
for the sake of man.
For the gods are many, whilst men are few.
The gods are mighty and can endure their manifoldness.
For like the stars they abide in solitude,
parted one from the other by immense distances.
But men are weak and cannot endure their manifold
nature.
Therefore they dwell together and need communion,
that they may bear their separateness.
For redemption’s sake I teach you the rejected
truth, for the sake of which I was rejected.
The multiplicity of the gods correspondeth
to the multiplicity of man.
Numberless gods await the human state.
Numberless gods have been men.
Man shareth in the nature of the gods.
He cometh from the gods and goeth unto god.
Thus, just as it serveth not to reflect upon
the pleroma, it availeth not to worship the
multiplicity of the gods.
Least of all availeth it to worship the first
god, the effective abundance and the summum
bonum.
By our prayer we can add to it nothing, and
from it nothing take; because the effective
void swalloweth all.
The bright gods form the celestial world.
It is manifold and infinitely spreading and
increasing.
The god-sun is the supreme lord of that world.
The dark gods form the earth-world.
They are simple and infinitely diminishing
and declining.
The devil is the earth-world’s lowest lord,
the moon-spirit, satellite of the earth, smaller,
colder, and more dead than the earth.
There is no difference between the might of
the celestial gods and those of the earth.
The celestial gods magnify, the earth-gods
diminish.
Measureless is the movement of both.
Sermo V
The dead mocked and cried: Teach us, fool,
of the church and holy communion.
The world of the gods is made manifest in
spirituality and in sexuality.
The celestial ones appear in spirituality,
the earthly in sexuality.
Spirituality conceiveth and embraceth.
It is womanlike and therefore we call it mater
coelestis, the celestial mother.
Sexuality engendereth and createth.
It is manlike, and therefore we call it phallos,
the earthly father.
The sexuality of man is more of the earth,
the sexuality of woman is more of the spirit.
The spirituality of man is more of heaven,
it goeth to the greater.
The spirituality of woman is more of the earth,
it goeth to the smaller.
Lying and devilish is the spirituality of
the man which goeth to the smaller.
Lying and devilish is the spirituality of
the woman which goeth to the greater.
Each must go to its own place.
Man and woman become devils one to the other
when they divide not their spiritual ways,
for the nature of creatura is distinctiveness.
The sexuality of man hath an earthward course,
the sexuality of woman a spiritual.
Man and woman become devils one to the other
if they distinguish not their sexuality.
Man shall know of the smaller, woman the greater.
Man shall distinguish himself both from spirituality
and from sexuality.
He shall call spirituality Mother, and set
her between heaven and earth.
He shall call sexuality Phallos, and set him
between himself and earth.
For the Mother and the Phallos are super-human
daemons which reveal the world of the gods.
They are for us more effective than the gods,
because they are closely akin to our own nature.
Should ye not distinguish yourselves from
sexuality and from spirituality, and not regard
them as of a nature both above you and beyond,
then are ye delivered over to them as qualities
of the pleroma.
Spirituality and sexuality are not your qualities,
not things which ye possess and contain.
But they possess and contain you; for they
are powerful daemons, manifestations of the
gods, and are, therefore, things which reach
beyond you, existing in themselves.
No man hath a spirituality unto himself, or
a sexuality unto himself.
But he standeth under the law of spirituality
and of sexuality.
No man, therefore, escapeth these daemons.
Ye shall look upon them as daemons, and as
a common task and danger, a common burden
which life hath laid upon you.
Thus is life for you also a common task and
danger, as are the gods, and first of all
terrible Abraxas.
Man is weak, therefore is communion indispensable.
If your communion be not under the sign of
the Mother, then is it under the sign of the
Phallos.
No communion is suffering and sickness.
Communion in everything is dismemberment and
dissolution.
Distinctiveness leadeth to singleness.
Singleness is opposed to communion.
But because of man’s weakness over against
the gods and daemons and their invincible
law is communion needful.
Therefore shall there be as much communion
as is needful, not for man’s sake, but because
of the gods.
The gods force you to communion.
As much as they force you, so much is communion
needed, more is evil.
In communion let every man submit to others,
that communion be maintained; for ye need
it.
In singleness the one man shall be superior
to the others, that every man may come to
himself and avoid slavery.
In communion there shall be continence.
In singleness there shall be prodigality.
Communion is depth.
Singleness is height.
Right measure in communion purifieth and preserveth.
Right measure in singleness purifieth and
increaseth.
Communion giveth us warmth, singleness giveth
us light.
Sermo VI
The daemon of sexuality approacheth our soul
as a serpent.
It is half human and appeareth as thought-desire.
The daemon of spirituality descendeth into
our soul as the white bird.
It is half human and appeareth as desire-thought.
The serpent is an earthy soul, half daemonic,
a spirit, and akin to the spirits of the dead.
Thus too, like these, she swarmeth around
in the things of earth, making us either to
fear them or pricking us with intemperate
desires.
The serpent hath a nature like unto woman.
She seeketh ever the company of the dead who
are held by the spell of the earth, they who
found not the way beyond that leadeth to singleness.
The serpent is a whore.
She wantoneth with the devil and with evil
spirits; a mischievous tyrant and tormentor,
ever seducing to evilest company.
The white bird is a half-celestial soul of
man.
He bideth with the Mother, from time to time
descending.
The bird hath a nature like unto man, and
is effective thought.
He is chaste and solitary, a messenger of
the Mother.
He flieth high above earth.
He commandeth singleness.
He bringeth knowledge from the distant ones
who went before and are perfected.
He beareth our word above to the Mother.
She intercedeth, she warneth, but against
the gods she hath no power.
She is a vessel of the sun.
The serpent goeth below and with her cunning
she lameth the phallic daemon, or else goadeth
him on.
She yieldeth up the too crafty thoughts of
the earthy one, those thoughts which creep
through every hole and cleave to all things
with desirousness.
The serpent, doubtless, willeth it not, yet
she must be of use to us.
She fleeth our grasp, thus showing us the
way, which with our human wits we could not
find.
With disdainful glance the dead spake: Cease
this talk of gods and daemons and souls.
At bottom this hath long been known to us.
Sermo VII
Yet when night was come the dead again approached
with lamentable mien and said: There is yet
one matter we forgot to mention.
Teach us about man.
Man is a gateway, through which from the outer
world of gods, daemons, and souls ye pass
into the inner world; out of the greater into
the smaller world.
Small and transitory is man.
Already is he behind you, and once again ye
find yourselves in endless space, in the smaller
or innermost infinity.
At immeasurable distance standeth one single
Star in the zenith.
This is the one god of this one man.
This is his world, his pleroma, his divinity.
In this world is man Abraxas, the creator
and the destroyer of his own world.
This Star is the god and the goal of man.
This is his one guiding god.
In him goeth man to his rest.
Toward him goeth the long journey of the soul
after death.
In him shineth forth as light all that man
bringeth back from the greater world.
To this one god man shall pray.
Prayer increaseth the light of the Star.
It casteth a bridge over death.
It prepareth life for the smaller world and
assuageth the hopeless desires of the greater.
When the greater world waxeth cold, burneth
the Star.
Between man and his one god there standeth
nothing, so long as man can turn away his
eyes from the flaming spectacle of Abraxas.
Man here, god there.
Weakness and nothingness here, there eternally
creative power.
Here nothing but darkness and chilling moisture.
There wholly sun.
Whereupon the dead were silent and ascended
like the smoke above the herdsman’s fire,
who through the night kept watch over his
flock.
ANAGRAMMA:
NAHTRIHECCUNDE
GAHINNEVERAHTUNIN
ZEHGESSURKLACH
ZUNNUS.
