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Christ and the Third Order Powers
By Cyd Ropp, Ph. D.
Copyright 2022; all rights reserved
Welcome back to Gnostic Insights. For the past several episodes we have been working together on my next book, A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel. The gnostic cosmogeny becomes more complex as each episode goes by so, if this is your first time listening to Gnostic Insights, I strongly recommend you visit the podcast’s home page and listen to the prior episodes in this series before going on, in order to avoid confusion. You can find the prior episodes in this current series under the tab “A Simple Explanation of the Gnostic Gospel.” This week introduces the Third Order of Powers and the Christ.
Thus far, in previous episodes, we have encountered several types of beings. Oftentimes when reading the Tripartite Tractate we run into the words “images,” “representations,” and “likenesses,” and they all refer to different types of entities. I keep a little cue card by my computer to remind me of who’s who. You may wish to do the same because these words appear frequently in the Tripartite Tractate and consistently refer to particular entities. Keeping them straight in your mind is very helpful to understanding the Gnostic Gospel.
The first Being to emerge out of the pure consciousness of the Father is called “the One” and “the Son.” The Son is the first emanation from the Father, yet it remains part of the Father as an extension of his Holy Spirit. The Son quickly differentiated into what are called “the Totalities” and the “pure beings of the thought.” They are also referred to as “the ALL,” because they comprise ALL of the totality of the Son’s nature and thoughts. When the Totalities became Self-aware they “named themselves” and “sorted themselves” into what are called the “Aeons of the Hierarchy of the Fullness.” The Aeons of the Fullness are also pure images of the Son, with the added feature of Self-awareness. The images never came down into this material plane; the images of the ALL and the Aeons are still pure etheric images of the original Son. These aeonic images of the thought are the First Order of Powers.
Next come what are called the “representations” of the Aeons, which are the fractal Pleroma of the Fullness represented within the single Aeon known as Logos. The representations are a perfect, fractal copy of the original Aeons and their positions in the Hierarchy. These representations are the “Second Order of Powers” and “the fruit of Logos.” Logos sends these Second Order Powers into our material plane in the form of all of the living creatures that populate the universe. We humans count ourselves as Second Order Powers along with everything else that contains life. The Second Order Powers are emanations from the Father that flows through the Son, through the Aeons of the Fullness, and through Logos, and so carry the Holy Spirit that confers consciousness and life into this creation below.
There is a third type of being called “the likenesses.” The likenesses are also known as the shadows and phantoms of the deficiency. The likenesses did not exist from the beginning and did not come from the ethereal plane; they are not emanations of the Father’s consciousness and so do not contain the Holy Spirit of life. The likenesses were formed out of the Fall of Logos and are inverted shadows of the fractals of Logos. Our material universe is an “imitation,” or what people are now calling a “simulation,” of the Paradise dreamed by the Aeons of the Fullness. The imitations of the deficiency are perverse versions of the representations and the images. Those living creatures here on Earth who work according to their own narcissistic ego promote the inverted values of the deficiency. While the servants of the imitation may look like representations of the Aeons of the Fullness, they have lost touch with the Father and their true mission here on Earth.
The representations, we Second Order Powers, have a dim remembrance of the Father and the Fullness above. As the fruit of Logos, our orientation is always slightly upward and onward, even though we may continually fall back to egoic behavior. But, when push comes to shove, we Second Order Powers eventually look to the Father for help out of our suffering, as did Logos when he sought to escape the deficiency and return to the Fullness above.
We can think of all of these diverse entities as a set of stacking fractals of the Hierarchy of the Fullness of God. The Aeons of the Fullness were the original Self-aware fractals of the consciousness of the Son who became their Father. Through a process of giving glory to the Father in various combinations, the “Aeons of the Aeons” conceived an infinite variety of Aeons to populate their Fullness. Fullness, by the way, is another word for Pleroma. The Aeonic fractals are the “images of the thought,” and that “thought” was the Son.
The final Aeon conceived by the Fullness was named Logos, and he was a composite of all of the other Aeons, one fractal iteration down. The Pleroma of Logos was emanated by all of the Aeons giving glory to the Father at once, and this action conceived the final Aeon called Logos. His Pleroma was a fractal iteration down from the Fullness of the Hierarchy. He so resembled the Fullness, that he mistook himself for the Totalities and set out for the “realm of perfect glory” all by himself. This overreach resulted in the Fall. When Logos overreached and Fell out of the Hierarchy of the Fullness, his broken body generated an inverted shadow of all of the fractals of his Pleroma. In the same manner that a mirror reflects ourselves but has no substance beyond the likeness, the shadows are dead likenesses of the Pleroma of Logos. There is a phantom likeness for every one of the images above. And those likenesses are the egoic side or the broken side–the shadow side—of the mirror.
Logos still retained his original Pleroma and, when Logos remembered the Father, his Self, and his brothers in the Fullness, he was able to return to the Fullness. This is when the Pleroma of Logos, began to generate the Second Order Powers, all of us living creatures–everything that contains the Holy Spirit, the spark of life.
Here is how the Tripartite Tractate describes the Pleroma of Logos that generated the Second Order of Powers:
“The thought of the Logos, who had returned to his stability and ruled over those who had come into being because of him, was called “Aeon” and “Place” of all those whom he had brought forth in accord with the ordinance, and it is also called “Synagogue of Salvation,” because he healed him(self) from the dispersal, which is the multifarious thought, and returned to the single thought. Similarly, it is called “Storehouse,” because of the rest which he obtained, giving (it) to himself alone. And it is also called “Bride,” because of the joy of the one who gave himself to him in the hope of fruit from the union, and who appeared to him. It is also called “Kingdom,” because of the stability which he received, while he rejoices at the domination over those who fought him. And it is called “the Joy of the Lord,” because of the gladness in which he clothed himself. With him is the light, giving him recompense for the good things which are in him, and (with him is) the thought of freedom.”
This describes the Second Order of Powers, which are the Pleroma of the newly restored Logos. There is one of us Second Order Powers for every one of the likenesses of the Fall. Whereas the likenesses are shadows of the Aeons, we Second Order Powers are the true fractal fruit of Logos and we bring life, consciousness, and the Holy Spirit of love into this fallen cosmos. Because we Second Order representations were fitted into the Boundary that forms our cosmic ecology, we find ourselves bound in a relationship to the material of the deficiency. Since we are true, fractal representations of the Pleroma of Logos, we are a perfect match for every likeness of the shadow Pleroma of Logos. We have a one to one relationship with the matter that forms our earthly bodies.
And now we have reached the point in gnostic cosmogeny and cosmic history where the Third Order of Powers is created. There is a Third Order Power for every one of us Second Order Powers. The Third Order Powers are the Pleroma of the Christ that come from the ethereal plane to redeem us and, along with us, the Fallen thought of the Demiurge.
Let us turn now to the Tripartite Tractate to uncover the who, how, what, and why of Christ and the Army of Christ and what they have to do with us. What we’re talking about today comes from section eight of the Tripartite Tractate that is called the Emanation of the Savior.
“The stumbling, which happened to the aeons of the Father of the Totalities who did not suffer, was brought to them, as if it were their own, in a careful and non-malicious and immensely sweet way. It was brought to the Totalities so that they might be instructed about the defect by the single one, from whom alone they all received strength to eliminate the defects.”
The stumbling is the Fall of the Aeon Logos. The Aeons of the Fullness were made aware of the situation in a careful, “non-malicious and immensely sweet way” which implies that there was no condemnation or wrath involved. The passage says the Aeons were made aware of the deficiency by the single One, which is the Son, who also gave them the strength needed to eliminate the defects.
“The Logos which moved had the hope and the expectation of him who is exalted… The order which was his came into being from him who ran on high and that which brought itself forth from him and from the entire perfection.”
Logos had hope and expectation of the exalted Father’s love. The order which was his is another way of speaking of the restored Pleroma of Logos, which was from him who ran on high. I interpret him who ran on high as the Self of Logos–his singular, unitary Self-concept or unit of consciousness in Simple Explanation terms. That which brought itself forth from him are those fractal units of consciousness that make up the contents of the Pleroma of Logos. The entire perfection is the ALL and the totality of the Aeons.
“The one who ran on high became for the one who was defective an intercessor with the emanation of the aeons which had come into being in accord with the things which exist.”
Here we may wonder who exactly is the “one who was defective.” This phrase can refer to both the Demiurge who Fell and to us Second Order Powers. We Second Order Powers who have forgotten our true origin by engaging in the never-ending war with the deficiency have become “defective.” Likewise, the “defective one” also refers to the fallen Ego of Logos abandoned down below, whom we call the Demiurge—the agent of the Fall. By this time in the Gnostic cosmogeny, Logos would be praying for the redemption of both his fallen Ego and the Second Order Powers fruited from his Pleroma, both struggling in this material world. Indeed, the redemption of each of the Second Order Powers will prove to be a fractal version of the redemption of the Demiurge.
The Tripartite Tractate continues, “When he prayed to them, they consented joyously and willingly, since they were in agreement, and with harmonious consent, to aid the defective one. They gathered together, asking the Father with beneficent intent that there be aid from above, from the Father, for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way, unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one.”
The ALL and the Hierarchy of the Aeons both constitute the Pleroma of the Son Who Has Become the Father. The Aeons stepped up joyously and willingly with the thought of being helpful to the deficient ones by bringing awareness of the Father’s glory and love. We know that the originating source of consciousness is the illimitable Father—the God Above All Gods. The originating Father is beyond comprehension, even for the Aeons. The only entity capable of grasping the illimitable God Above All Gods is the Son of the Father, who contains within himself all of the traits of the Father. It is this Son who has a countenance, a face, because the Father wants to be known to his emanations through the Son. This is how we know that when these passages speak of the Father, they are actually referring to the Son who has become a Father to his emanations, because the Aeons are able to behold the countenance of their Father.
By now we realize that when Aeons give glory together they produce new emanations; this is how Aeons make new fruit. The last time this had happened, all of the Aeons had emanated Logos as an image of their Totality. Now they gathered together and all of them, including Logos, gave glory to the Pleroma of their Father with harmonious consent while concurrently asking the Father to help them bring aid to the defective one. The difference between this act of fruiting and the one that originally brought forth the Aeon named Logos was that Logos was fruited by the individual Fullnesses giving glory to the Father together; this time the fruiting was the Fullnesses and the ALL giving glory alongside Logos while praying with specific intent for salvation to come to the deficiency.
The Tripartite Tractate says of their fruiting: “Then from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit, which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Totalities, revealing the countenance of the Father, of whom the aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them. Thus, it was willingly and gladly that they bring forth the fruit.”
The Gnostic Gospel calls this new fruit the Christ. The Pleroma of the Christ is the Third Order of Powers, endowed with more capabilities than the First and Second Orders, because the Christ embodies the entirety of the ALL and the particularity of the consciousness of each of the individual Aeons of the Fullness, along with the full power of the Holy Spirit and the Son’s entire knowledge and remembrance of the ethereal plane. This Third Order of Powers is fully equipped to bring remembrance and redemption to the Second Order Powers living in this fallen world and to the Demiurge.
“Not only did the aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, which was written previously, but also they generated their own; for the aeons who give glory generated their countenance and their face. They were produced as an army for him, as for a king, since the beings of the thought have a powerful fellowship and an intermingled harmony. They came forth in a multifaceted form, in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the one who gave it to him.”
The emanation of the Christ brings all of the knowledge, power, and glory of the God Above All Gods through its Son and the Totalities into creation. The Christ is now in the process of bringing this gnosis to all Second Order Powers. There is a Third Order Power for each and every Second Order Power, and a Second Order Power for each and every shadow of the Fall. All we need to do is allow the Third Order Powers to take up residence within our individuated Pleromas. In this manner, the gnosis and love of the Christ will displace the shadows and bring redemption to us and through us. This is the true mission of Christianity.
The Tripartite Tractate has much more to say about the Christ and his Pleroma. In next week’s episode we will speak more about the nature and power of the Christ and the means by which redemption comes to the Fallen cosmos. I hope you will join me again next week for this very exciting episode. Until then, do not despair, for help is on the way.
Onward and upward! And God bless us all.