4 INTRODUCTION
thinkers in this volume. John the baptizer becomes the gnostic hero of the Man-
daeans, Jesus of the Christian gnostics. Simon Magus may lurk in the back-
ground of several gnostic texts, and Dositheos is said to be the compiler of the
Three Steles of Seth. Others, mostly unnamed, may have made similar contri-
butions to the discussion of the profound question of the transcendent god
and the demiurge.
The role of the gnostic savior or revealer is to awaken people who are under
the spell of the demiurge—not, as in the case of the Christ of the emerging or-
thodox church, to die for the salvation of people, to be a sacrifice for sins, or to
rise from the dead on Easter. The gnostic revealer discloses knowledge that
frees and awakens people, and that helps them recall who they are. When en-
lightened, gnostics can live a life appropriate for those who know themselves
and god. They can return back to the beginning, when they were one with god.
Such a life transcends what is mundane and mortal in this world and experi-
ences the bliss of oneness with the divine. As the divine forethought, or Christ,
in the Secret Book of John says to a person—every person—in the pit of the
underworld, "I am the forethought of pure light, I am the thought of the vir-
gin spirit, who raises you to a place of honor. Arise, remember that you have
heard, and trace your root, which is I, the compassionate."
Gnostic literature includes a typical cast of spiritual or mythological fig-
ures and realms, but they are referred to by different names.
Above and beyond all is the transcendent deity. In the Book of Baruch this
deity is called the Good and is identified with the fertility god Priapos. In the
Secret Book of John and elsewhere this deity is called the One, or monad, as
well as the invisible spirit, virgin spirit, and father. It is said that the One
should not be confused with a god, since it is greater than a god. Elsewhere the
transcendent is called the boundless, depth, majesty, light. Poimandres reveals
itself as the light, mind, first god. Mandaeans call this deity the great life and
lord of greatness, Manichaeans the father of greatness, Muslim mystics the ex-
alted king, Cathars the invisible father, true god, good god.
The glory of the transcendent is made manifest in a heavenly world of
light. In the classic literature of gnostic wisdom this exalted world is often
called the pleroma or fullness of god, and the inhabitants of this world are
called aeons or eternal realms. The first of the aeons is usually the divine
mother. For Simon Magus she is Helena, or ennoia, the thought of god. In the
Secret Book of John she is Barbelo, or pronoia, the first thought or forethought
of god. Thunder, in the text by that name, has certain similarities as well.
Sometimes the transcendent father and the divine mother produce a child in