Last week we talked about the Holy Spirit, what or who it is, and how and why it came to Earth. To review: In Gnostic teaching, there are three kinds of Power that we know of: The First Order of Powers were the original Aeons—that is, the differentiations that are within the Son of God and that coexist with the Son. It’s called the First Order of Powers because the Son is the first and only direct emanation of the originating Source of consciousness and power. The Pleroma of the First Order of Powers is the infinite number of variables of all possibilities known to the God Above All Gods. The Second Order of Powers is us and all other life forms. We are the fruit, or children, of the First Order of Powers, fruited through the Pleroma of Logos after he abandoned the results of the Fall and returned to the Fullness above. We’re part of the original power coming from the Father and through the Son and then through the Aeons and on through the Pleroma of Logos. And we are literally the fruit of the Aeon Logos. Logos contained fractals of all the other Aeons inside of him, and we are the fruit of those fractals after Logos returned back to the Fullness. The Holy Spirit is the Pleroma of the Christ. It is also called the Third Order of Powers. The Third Order of Powers is what came along with the manifestation of the Christ, first in the heavens and then on Earth. Christ is not an Aeon—He is greater than the Aeons. Nor is Christ the original Son that emerged directly from the Father, because the Son predates the Christ. Christ is the Third Order of Powers, formed through the prayer of the Aeons under the direction of the Son and with the blessing and will of the Father. The Tripartite Tractate says: 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. (Tripartite Tractate, verse 86) All of those that come with the Christ form the Pleroma of the Third Order Powers—that is, all of the variables that make up the Christ. The Third Order Powers are to the Christ what the First Order Powers are to the Son. We are called the fruit of the Pleroma of Logos, the Second Order of Powers. The First Order of Powers was the Pleroma of the Son. And Christ, the Third Order of Powers, is the fruit of the Totalities of the Son and the Father. He’s a different entity than the Father and the Son. He is the Pleroma of the Holy Spirit that represents the Totalities and the Father. Yet, the Tripartite Tractate does call him the Son because he is “the revelation of his union with them, which is his beloved Son.” The one who is properly called “Savior” and “the Redeemer” and “the Well-Pleasing one” and “the Beloved,” “the one to whom prayers have been offered” and “he Christ” and “the Light of those appointed,” in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions [which] were given to him. Yet what other name may be applied to him except “the Son,” as we previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father, whom he wanted them to know? (Tripartite Tractate, verses 86-87) Jesus said he would send the Comforter to his followers that would fill them with the Holy Spirit of the Father. This would be a new entity bringing its presence into the cosmos. Not only did the Aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise… 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. (Tripartite Tractate, verse 87) This is why I make a point of repeating how the aeons are the body of the Pleroma of the Son and how we come from the Pleroma of the body of Logos. The Pleroma of Logos is a fractal of the Pleroma of the Son. In other words, we living creatures are the second iteration of Logos who carries within himself an iteration of the Fullness of God. We have the countenance or face of the various aeons, one fractal level down. So when the Pleroma of the Christ, also known as the Holy Spirit, came to Earth, it reflected the countenance of every Second Order Power and every First Order Power. This is what is meant when the Tripartite Tractate says, 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.
