of
Basilides. Has a commentary on the Gospel of St John been used here,
or a commentary on the prologue by Basilides [containing perhaps the
teachings of the alleged instructor of Basilides, Glaucias, whose name,
rather suggesting the "shining one," may equal "Phosilampes"], which
interpreted "In the beginning" as meaning "In the First Concept or in
the Monad was the Word"?

(18) This repetition of the Seven Vowels gives the following meanings
to them:--AAA = Living of Living Ones, HHH = Holy of Holy Ones, EEE =
Being of Beings, III = Father of Fatherhoods, OOO = God of Gods,
YYY=Lord of Lords, +OOO+ = Space of Spaces or AEon of AEons. The High
and Holy One, together with His Bride and Mother, the "Universal Church
or First Concept," are one in and with the Eternity that they inhabit.
Hence "Thou art the House and the Dweller in the House." Time (AEon)
and Space (Topos) are here one, or different aspects of the same mode
of being.

(19) _Cp._ "The Mind unto Hermes," 16: "The Cosmos is all-formed
[Pantomorphos]--not having forms external to itself, but changing them,
itself within itself"; also the "Perfect Sermon," xix. 3: "The
thirty-six, who have the name of Horoscopes, are in the self-same space
as the fixed stars; of these the essence chief or Prince is he whom
they call Pantomorph and Omniform, who fashioneth the various forms for
various species." The Pantomorphic Body is the Augoeides or
Astroeides, the ray-like or star-like glory (not to be confused with
the "astral body" of modern theosophy). _Cp._ Origen, Ep. 38 ad
Pammach: "Another body, a spiritual and aetherial one, is promised us:
a body that is not subject to physical touch, nor seen by physical
eyes, nor burdened with weight, and which shall be metamorphosed
according to the variety of regions in which it shall be.... In that
spiritual body the whole of us will see, the whole hear, the whole
serve as hands, the whole as feet." The Star-body is the body of
Resurrection and Ascension. _Cp._ Mark 16:12: "He was manifested in
_another form_ unto two of them." Also it was the body of "the
universal" descent, that which transmitted the AEons from the Pleroma or
Ideal World to the Sensible World, hence it was considered to be
"scattered" or in a state of latency, or of mystical death in normal
man. To awaken it, to gather it together, or to "raise it from the
dead," was one of the first objects of the mystics, who followed the
way of the Gnosis.