Pleroma

Halfway through the Gospel of Truth there’s a parable about moving house. A family packs up, and some of their jars turn out to be bad ones that crack on the way. The owner doesn’t grieve over them, because the full jars made the trip, and those were the ones worth carrying. Then the parable gets restless. A great disturbance breaks out among the jars, “for some were empty and others were filled, some were ample and others were depleted, some were purified and others were broken.” I read that line on my laptop with a row of tabs open above it, each one too narrow to show its title, and I had the uncomfortable sense that the text was describing my screen. ...

Everyone is fluent in deficiency. Not enough time, not enough money, not enough sleep, not quite enough of whatever the morning’s first anxious thought is auditing. The vocabulary of lack comes preinstalled. The old Gnostics had a word for the opposite, and they made a remarkable claim about it. Pleroma is Greek for fullness, and in their map of reality the fullness comes first. Lack is real, but it is a latecomer with a traceable history, and knowing the map is part of the cure. This is a beginner’s guide to the most beautiful idea in Gnostic cosmology. ...