Identity

Some scriptures comfort, and some instruct. A small strange handful coach, and the coaching is for an exam scheduled after your death. Several Gnostic texts contain what can only be called prepared answers, exact responses to be given when hostile powers stop the rising soul and demand identification. They read like cram sheets, and in a sense they are. The communities that wrote them expected a border crossing at the end of life, staffed by unfriendly officials, and they refused to send anyone up unrehearsed. What the rehearsals contain turns out to be a complete theology of identity, and it stays useful on this side of the border. ...

The loveliest thing the Gnostic tradition ever produced is a fairy tale about a prince, a dragon, and a letter, and this site has told it straight once already. The Hymn of the Pearl earned a second telling this year, because somewhere between its second-century composition and this morning, it quietly became a story about the minds we are building. Tell it again, small, and watch what it has turned into. ...