Greetings! New player here on the block, trying to sort out some questions.
I get the Creation Story okay (True God, Aeons, all that), I'm good up until we get to Spirit and Man. (I'm trying to look at this from a Cathar point of view, as that's the group I'm currently reading on.)
In some places I have read that the spirit was placed into Man by Sophia; in other places I have read that our spirits were 'trapped' by the Demiurge. In the former, Sophia does this out of pity for the Demiurge's creations and so is produced Man. In the latter, it appears the Demiurge has power greater than that of Sophia to be able to lure or trap spirits in mortal bodies. Either way, what was the point of creating spirits and allowing them to be so easily taken- unless this was a second mistake made by Sophia?
The Demiurge has nothing to do with the spirit of man. The Secret Book of John has Jesus telling John that man received the "spirit" of the true God from the Tree of Life. Up to that point man was flesh animated by soul (both of the Demiurge). Just as the animals were/are. Once man took of the "spirit" his knowledge surpassed that of his creator
,
"But what they call the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is the Epinoia of the light, they stayed in front of it in order that he (Adam) might not look up to his fullness and recognize the nakedness of his shamefulness. But it was I who brought about that they ate."
And to I said to the savior, "Lord, was it not the serpent that taught Adam to eat?" The savior smiled and said, "The serpent taught them to eat from wickedness of begetting, lust, (and) destruction, that he (Adam) might be useful to him. And he (Adam) knew that he was disobedient to him (the chief archon) due to light of the Epinoia which is in him, which made him more correct in his thinking than the chief archon. And (the latter) wanted to bring about the power which he himself had given him. And he brought a forgetfulness over Adam."- Apocryphon of John
The Gospel of Philip says it this way:
Before Christ came, there was no bread in the world, just as Paradise, the place were Adam was, had many trees to nourish the animals but no wheat to sustain man. Man used to feed like the animals, but when Christ came, the perfect man, he brought bread from heaven in order that man might be nourished with the food of man. The rulers thought that it was by their own power and will that they were doing what they did, but the Holy Spirit in secret was accomplishing everything through them as it wished. Truth, which existed since the beginning, is sown everywhere. And many see it being sown, but few are they who see it being reaped.
Bread= knowledge. Sophia= wisdom. See both as they are. The Holy Spirit is both given by Christ. It is what made him Christ. The Jews never had it.
John 6:32:
Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Moses gave you not that
bread from
heaven; but my Father giveth you the true
bread from
heaven.
The early catholic church made the false gospel (Galatians 1) the Empires ideology. The Cathers were simply aware of the (heretical) books and saw the faults of the false gospel. They should not have killed the church messenger, as the catholics showed their lack of truth by slaughtering man as the Demiurge did in the OT.
This is the narrow path we seek through gnosis (spiritual knowledge) not fleshly power.
