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with life and light from God. The mere success of the logical mind in
unravelling a puzzle was as nothing, for the readings of these
monstrous, many-faceted stars of symbolism were infinite. That the
intuition should enter into self awareness as into a sacred place of
the mysteries--that was a process of the Gnosis.

Now this strange way of teaching, which was really a "Cloud of
Unknowing," was the real basis and point, as it were, of the
Alexandrine method of interpreting Scripture. Think of Philo and what
he says of the teaching of his Gnostic Therapeuts. Think of Clement,
and of Origen with his "Eternal Gospel." This quickening of the
intuition into knowledge of itself and God, through allegory and symbol
based on philosophy, was the Everlasting Gospel.

So Gnostic documents were not merely intended to puzzle the outsider,
but the insider as well. This fact will enable us to appreciate better
Basilides' famous remark about the one or two only who could understand
his system. His frame of mind was a little like that of a university
examiner after setting a paper. We need not think that these people
were altogether destitute of humour. It would be a gross exaggeration,
of course, to say that all the Gnostic systems described in Irenaeus
and Hippolytus might have been devised by the same man, but it would be
a useful exaggeration, illustrating the extreme anti-literalist point
of view. Our knowledge of the schools rests for the most part on
reports made upon documents such as these, the purport of which was
entirely missed by those that made them. They treated Gnosis as if it
were another kind of "Pistis," or another system of philosophy. One
doubts very much the correctness of the traditional classification of
schools, which was made by people who were not in very close touch with
them. One doubts if there was much hostility between these schools,
however much their symbolism may appear to differ on the surface.

What was the result of these processes "initiated" or "started" by
sacramental rites, by symbolism, by masters of Gnosis? Was the result
something purely "subjective" at best? The answer of the Masters of
the Gnosis to this question, which is characteristic of the modern mind
and expresses the doubt which is gnawing at the heart of much modern
religious life, would have been "No. There are certain physical
changes as well. The body is spiritualised." They might possibly have
added, "It i