Sunday, November 18, 2012

The Laughing Christ in the Gospel of Philip

The lord said it perfectly:
"Some have entered the kingdom of heaven laughing, 
and they have come out laughing."
They do not remain there:
one because he is not a Christian,
another because he laments his later acts.
As soon as Christ went down into the water
he came out laughing at everything in this world.,
not because he thought it a trifle, but out of contempt.
whoever wants to enter the kingdom of heaven will do so.
Whoever despises everything of this world, scorn it as a trifle,
will emerge laughing.
So with the bread and the cup and the oil,
for above is one superior to all these. 

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The term Christian is being used in a derogatory sense here, as in labeling oneself not being helpful for the soul/aiua to evolve beyond the pettiness which this life can be.


Why would we lament our later acts after spending time with pleroma? I can think of a million reasons. Just one off-hand would be this: resentment that in order to do the right thing we have to stay and deal with the insanity which is this life. So not only do we resent him for at least a moment or two for telling us that we have to stay but we also resent ourselves for feeling such an abhorrent thing for him to begin with. We KNOW that he's right. But that doesn't make us less emotionally inept at dealing with the cold hard facts. In acting out that 'lament' of our later acts we can do some pretty stupid stuff; do things we never would otherwise. Like a typical teenager thumbing their nose at their parents.


The bread and the cup and the oil reference-- think of annointings, blessings, wine, breaking bread and the like. Philip states that these three things themselves are trifles but the heavenly All is superior to all these and we shouldn't get so immersed in ceremony or iconography. 


11/18 addendum:
Looking back at this now I see that the laughing may also have to do with the absurd things pleroma shows a person when immersed within his being. Try being squishie hugged by a Santa Claus/Jim Carrey/Jaques Cousteau type charactor. Loving, irreverently funny, insatiably curious and educational nerd. Yep. That's him. That's The Man.



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