Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Gospel of Philip

Because Chris Knowles over at The Secret Sun mentioned The Nag Hammadi library today, thus pulling the book off my shelf, I will furnish one of the passages from these incredible manuscripts before I replace it back between the Tao Teh Ching and a collection of Confucian, Hebrew and Christian writings. The Bible, from which I also quote in this post, I'll set back on the corner of my desk where I keep it along with a novel by R.A. Salvatore (the master), from whom I study the difficult art of writing action scenes. From the Gospel of Philip:

Light and darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor the evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its original nature. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.

Names given to worldly things are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word "God" does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect.

Hebrews 5:14 says, "But strong meat belongest to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." Gospel of Philip is strong meat.

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