LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM 489
my father in heaven."^47 And to show that doers, not only hearers, must enter
the kingdom of heaven, he said again, "The tax collectors and prostitutes pre-
cede you into the kingdom of heaven."^48 Tax collectors^49 are those who receive
duties^50 on everything, and we are the tax collectors "to whom the taxes of the
aeons have come."^51 The taxes or perfections are the seeds sown in the uni-
verse by the unimprinted one. Through them the whole universe is com-
pleted.^52 Through them it began to come into existence. This is the meaning
of the saying, "The sower went out to sow, and some seed fell by the way and
were trodden down. Others fell on rocky ground and sprang up and, because
they had no depth, withered and died. And others fell on beautiful and good
ground and produced fruit—one into a hundred, another into sixty, another
into thirty. Whoever has ears to hear should hear."^53 This signifies that no one
has been a hearer of these mysteries except the perfect gnostics alone. This is
the beautiful and good that Moses mentions, "I will lead you into a beautiful
and good land, into a land flowing with milk and honey."^54 Honey and milk
are what the perfect ones taste to become kingless and to share in the pleroma.
The pleroma is that through which all created beings come into existence and
are completed from the uncreated.
STERILE
The Phrygians also give him the name sterile. He is sterile when he is fleshly
and performs the "lust of the flesh."^55 This is what is meant by "every tree
that does not bring forth good fruit is cut down and cast into fire."^56 The
fruits are only the rational, the living people, who enter through the third
gate. They say, "If you ate dead things and made them living, what will you
do if you eat living things?"^57 What they call "living" are rational principles- Matthew 7:21.
- Matthew 21:31.
- Greek telonai.
- Greek tele, meaning "duties," "taxes," "fulfillment."
51.1 Corinthians 10:11. The Greek for "taxes" may be translated "fulfillment"; the Greek for
"aeons" may be translated "ages." - Greek synteleitai, "is completed," from the same root as tele.
- Matthew 13:3-9; Mark 4:3-9; Luke 8:5-8; Gospel of Thomas 9.
- Deuteronomy 31:20.
- Galatians 5:16.
- Matthew 3:10; 7:19; Luke 3:9.
- Gospel of Thomas 11.