3l6 LITERATURE OF GNOSTIC WISDOM
the gentiles worship. Jerusalem is the creation or the creator, whom Jews
worship. In another sense the mountain is the creation, which the gentiles
worship. But you as spiritual people will worship neither the creation nor
the demiurge, but the father of truth. And he accepts her as one already faith-
ful and who will be numbered among the worshipers in truth.
(21) John 4:22
You worship what you do not know.These are the Jews and gentiles. As Peter teaches, "We must not worship in the
Greek manner, accepting the works of matter and worshiping wood and stone,
or in the Jewish manner worship the divine. They, thinking that they alone know
god, do not know him, and worship angels and the month and the moon."^22
(22) John 4:22
We worship what we know
since salvation is from the Jews."We" signifies the one who is in the aeon and those who have come from him.
They knew the one they worship as they worship in truth. "Salvation is from
the Jews," because he was born in Judea, but not among them, "since he was
not pleased with all of them,"^23 and because from that group of people came
salvation and the word to the world. In terms of what was meant allegorically,
salvation came from the Jews because they are regarded as images of beings in
the pleroma. Earlier worshipers worshiped him who was not father, but of
flesh and error. They worshiped the creation, not the true creator, who is
Christ, since "through him everything came to be and without the word noth-
ing came to be."
(23) John 4:23
God is spirit,
and those worshiping must worship him
in spirit and truth.Lost in the deep matter of error is what is related to the father, which is sought
after so that the father may be worshiped by those who are related to him.
- Preaching of Peter (Kerygma Petrou), cited in Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies (Stro-
mateis) 4.39-41.
23.1 Corinthians 10:5.