The Gnôsis of the Light

o doubt, who called himself a "Gnôstic" was but a sorry rogue; many another was but a student of the letter, not of the life; many another was but a spiritual swashbuckler, pompous in his demeanour and cryptic in his utterance; some, led by an abhorrent fantasy, may have wandered along the path that goes to the Venus-berg and have striven to lisp a formula that would transform the earth into Gehenna rather than into Heaven. But, beside this mass of imposture, of folly, of elegant idleness and of corruption, the à rebours of a spiritual outpouring, there was a real mysticism that could present the Authentic Spectacle and could utter comfortable words in tongues not of this world utterly. There was a Gnôsis that strove to give the Peace of God to those within and to those without, because in Peace all things were made, that yearned to bring forth children, quickened fiery souls, æons, gods, in bodies of light for the love of God; that saw in all things Grace, the Sponsa Dei, th