LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 313
(13) John 2:13-15
Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found the
people selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the coin
changers sitting there. He made a whip out of ropes and
drove out all the animals, the sheep and the oxen.The ascent to Jerusalem signifies the ascent of the lord from material things to
the psychical place, which is an image of Jerusalem.^13 He found them in the
innermost holy place, not in the temple courtyard, so one might think that a
simple calling, even when not from the spirit, is helped by the lord. The holy
place is the holy of holies in which only the high priest enters,^14 and where the
spiritual people come. But the court of the temple, where the Levites also are,
is a symbol of the psychical people outside the pleroma, who are found to be
in salvation. Those who are there in the holy space selling oxen and sheep and
doves, and the money changers sitting there, are those who offer nothing
freely but look at the coming of strangers to the temple as an occasion for
trade and gain, and because of their profit and love of money supply the sac-
rifices for worshiping god. The whip that Jesus made of small cords is an
image of power and energy of the holy spirit, blowing away the wicked. The
whip and the linen^15 and the winding sheet^16 and other such things are also an
image of the power and energy of the holy spirit. The whip was tied on wood,
and this wood was a symbol of the cross. On this wood the gambling mer-
chants and wickedness^17 were nailed and destroyed. The whip was made of
these two substances. Jesus did not make it of dead leather, since he wished to
build the church no longer as a den of thieves and merchants but as a house of
his father.
(14) John 2:17
Zeal for your house will consume me.These words were spoken from the mouth of those powers cast out and con-
sumed by the savior.
- Here the entry of Jesus into the temple is interpreted as the ascent from the material and the
attainment of salvation. The three Valentinian divisions of humanity are assumed. Thus Ca-
pernaum symbolizes the material, Jerusalem the psychical, and the holy of holies the spiritual. - See Hebrews 9:7.
- See Revelation 15:6.
- See Matthew 27:59.
- See Colossians 2:14.